Saddam Convicted of Crimes Against Humanity, Sentenced to Hang

Unlike Hitler, Stalin, Mao Pol Pot, Idi Amin or a hundred others, the tyrant Saddam Hussein has faced a jury of his peers.

by Rod D. Martin
November 5, 2006

Precious few of the butchers of the 20th century ever faced justice, but today, a freely-constituted court of the liberated people of Iraq and their elected representatives rendered judgment against one of the more notorious among them, Saddam Hussein.

In the words of the AP report, "The trial brought Saddam and his co-defendants before their accusers in what was one of the most highly publicized and heavily reported trials of its kind since the Nuremberg tribunals for members of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its slaughter of 6 million Jews in the World War II Holocaust."

"The verdict placed on the heads of the former regime does not represent a verdict for any one person. It is a verdict on a whole dark era that has was unmatched in Iraq's history," said Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's Shiite prime minister.

America has begun a great work in Iraq, not only by toppling a brutal dictator, but by freeing a great people. Its government wants, requests, and needs us …