Cockburn on Saddam

London Times

He will leave behind an Iraq in which the rule of law, which at least retained some outward form under Saddam’s tyranny, has all but disappeared, both in form and substance, supplanted by the regime of the death squad and suicide bomber. True, Saddam’s trial and appeal had the outward show of a regular judicial procedure, but there were enough flagrant irregularities — with defence evidence routinely excluded by the judge, and the results of his appeal pre-announced by an Iraqi government official — to have reminded the defendant of the way he used to run things.