EDITORIAL: The Death of Saddam

By The Herald, Rock Hill, S.C.

Jan. 1–The execution of Saddam Hussein was both appropriate and overdue. Nonetheless, his end came as something of an anticlimax.

Even by the standards of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, Saddam must be ranked as one of the worst ty-rants of his time. Although that tyranny was confined largely to his own country, the sadistic ruthlessness and savagery with which he maintained power was epic.

He made war with Kuwait and Iran in a vain effort to expand that power, sacrificing the lives of thousands of Iraqis in the process. He used poison gas and chemical weapons, long outlawed in the rest of the world, not only against Iranian troops but also to wipe out entire Kurdish villages.

His reign of terror was sustained by torture and assassination, aimed especially at the majority Shiite population. No Iraqi citizen, man or woman, including members of the royal family, was safe; all were subject to a visit in the night from Saddam’s thugs. Many were brutally tortured and imprisoned; others were publicly executed; many simply disappeared.

While critics of the Bush administration may take issue the decision-making process that led us to war with Iraq, Saddam also must be held accountable. Had he allowed U.N. inspectors and other international organizations to conduct an unfettered search for weapons of mass destruction, the case for war would have been much harder to make.

Saddam’s trial was more an event to showcase and publicly document his atrocities than a true hearing. His conviction was a foregone conclusion. Yet it would be hard to deny that some measure of justice was done and that the trial was preferable to a summary execution.

Certainly, nothing less than Saddam’s death would have satisfied the Iraqi people, particularly the Shiites. And Saddam was not the first of his country’s leaders to be executed.

Nonetheless, we are left to wonder what real significance the long-awaited death of Saddam holds. We can hope that it will mark a turning point at which Iraqis finally begin to lay to rest their troubled past and resolve to build a brighter future together.

But the Iraq Saddam has left behind still remains fiercely divided along sectarian lines. Few, if any, signs of reconciliation are evident. Iraqis are fleeing their homeland by the thousands. Much of the country is in ruins.

Saddam was hanged for murder in a country where mass murder occurs on the streets almost daily. It is difficult to see how his execution will make a difference.

Few tears will be shed for Saddam, but the grieving is far from over for Iraq.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Herald, Rock Hill, S.C.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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