ASHINGTON -- Senior Bush administration officials are debating
whether to order military commanders to kill rather than capture Saddam
Hussein to avoid an unpredictable trial that could stir up nationalist
Arab sentiments and embarrass Washington by publicizing past US support
for the deposed Iraqi dictator, according to defense and intelligence
officials.
Trying Hussein before an Iraqi or international criminal court would
present an opportunity to hold the Ba'ath Party regime accountable for its
repression and murder of thousands of people over the past three
decades.
Iraq's new US-backed Governing Council said this week it wants to try
Hussein in an Iraqi court, something the occupation authority there has
said it supports. The New York Times, citing unnamed State Department
officials, reported today that the administration favors creating a
tribunal of Iraqi judges to try Hussein for crimes against humanity if he
is caught.
But as US troops step up the hunt for Hussein near his hometown of
Tikrit, the prospect of an open trial that puts him on a public stage has
given pause to some in the administration, according to government
officials with knowledge of the high-level meetings. Among those said to
have taken part in the discussions are Vice President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
One of the officials, who is involved in the Iraq reconstruction
effort, described at least one of the leaders as having ''mixed feelings''
about whether to kill or capture Hussein.
Cheney, whose office would not comment on the issue last night, and
senior Bush advisers are said to worry that a trial would be a spectacle
in which Hussein could tap into Arab anxieties about the American
occupation, try to implicate the United States for previously coddling the
regime, and assert Iraq's compliance with United Nations resolutions
outlawing weapons of mass destruction -- measures that the administration
says gave legal justification for the war.
Publicly, US officials contend that the decision to capture or kill
Hussein will be up to commanders on the ground, the same scenario
presented after American troops killed Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, in
a firefight on July 22. Depending on the circumstances, the senior officer
on the scene would determine whether conditions permit Hussein to be
detained with minimal danger to American troops or civilians.
''This is a tactical issue,'' Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz, the
director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration is engaged in a fierce debate over
the implications of that policy.
The discussions might be moot, as some intelligence officials say
Hussein probably would fight to the death like his sons rather than face a
prison cell, interrogation, and -- if he is tried by Iraqis -- possible
execution.
''He didn't run from Iraq when he had the chance, and he won't be
taken,'' said Judith Yaphe, a professor of strategic studies at the
National Defense University in Washington and a former Iraq analyst at the
CIA. Others say Hussein might welcome the opportunity to defend himself
before the world. The former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, has
conducted his own defense before an international tribunal in The Hague,
drawing media attention for more than a year. Hussein, in challenging the
United States' justification for the war, would command far more world
attention than Milosevic.
''I don't see him filling the glorious martyr tradition,'' said John C.
Hulsman, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think
tank in Washington. The socialist Ba'ath Party philosophy, unlike the
militant brand of Islam espoused by Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is
not going to survive Hussein, he said.
''It's a one-man band, so from his point of view he might try to
surrender and as Milosevic'' is doing ''try to prove he is a victim of
history,'' Hulsman said.
Such a prospect, however, raises concerns that a trial would create
problems for the United States. One worry is that a host of embarrassing
charges might be leveled at the United States. Washington supported
Hussein's regime during Iraq's war against Iran between 1980 and 1988 --
including providing satellite images of Iranian military formations -- at
a time when Iraqi forces used chemical weapons against troops and
civilians. The United States may have even given Hussein the green light
to attack Iran, according to Said K. Aburish, author of ''Saddam Hussein:
The Politics of Revenge.''
A trial might also raise uncomfortable questions about Iraq's suspected
weapons of mass destruction. So far, the United States has failed to find
the alleged chemical and biological arms used as justification for the
war.
Hussein could try to take advantage of the controversy surrounding the
search for unconventional weapons, claiming before the court of world
opinion that he had abided by the UN resolutions that barred him from
having such weapons -- thus putting the United States and Britain on the
defensive.
Aburish, who was involved in business deals with Iraq in the 1970s,
said that the weapons programs that are the focus of such scrutiny had
roots in American assistance. For example, he said that in 1976 -- when
former president George H. W. Bush was director of the CIA -- Hussein's
government was sold the blueprints for what was described as a pesticide
plant but was later determined to have more nefarious purposes.
''We gave them the design for how to build a chemical warfare plant,''
Aburish said. ''The initial effort involved US government approval -- in
the second phase, someone woke up and said we can't do it. But [Hussein's]
people put it together piecemeal,'' based on that design.
Hulsman said: ''Saddam knows the background of America far too well to
make it comfortable for the Americans. He can claim victimhood in a region
replete with victimhood.''
US government officials, as recently as last fall, denied having
knowledge that the United States provided Iraq with materials for chemical
and biological weapons -- some as recently as 1992 -- ostensibly for
legitimate medical research. Rumsfeld told a Senate panel in September
that he doubted its validity.
If Hussein attempts to surrender, the United States would have to
accept it under most interpretations of international law governing the
treatment of enemy combatants, according to John Yoo, a visiting fellow at
the conservative American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
and a former Justice Department official. With attacks on US soldiers
continuing and Hussein considered the titular head of the opposition, the
law is open to interpretation.
Joseph Braude, author of ''The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its
People, the Middle East, and the World,'' said the benefit of trying
Hussein for his crimes outweighs the public relations challenge that such
a proceeding might present for the United States. ''He certainly should be
apprehended and not killed,'' Braude said. ''It would set an important
precedent for the more difficult path of truth and reconciliation in Iraq
in the years ahead.''
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