Saddam's execution provides an appropriate image for the war in Iraq
It was right that it happened this way. It was right that Saddam Hussein was hanged amid taunts from supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi militia. It was right that someone filmed the tawdry scenes on a mobile phone. It was right that George W Bush muttered platitudes about justice in response. It was right that Tony Blair stayed silent, leaving his ministers to contradict each other in the confusion.
It was right not because capital punishment is right - we cannot think of any modern precedent that could justify it, not even any conviction for crimes against humanity - but because Saddam's execution provides an appropriate image for the war in Iraq. It juxtaposes with the toppling of the dictator's statue in 2003 and with the brief optimism that accompanied his capture from a spider hole close to his home town of Tikrit six months later, just as the extent of the mistakes in the occupation strategy was becoming apparent. The events of 6am on 30 December 2006 in a dank room inside Camp Justice, as the Americans amusingly call it, form a piece with Abu Ghraib, and the massacres at Fallujah and Haditha, and the many other venues of violence in this benighted country, before and after the war.
For the perpetrators of this most misguided of military interventions there is nowhere to go from here. There is no advance to be made by the troops, no moral vindication to be grasped, no example to be set to the rest of the world. Blair will, on his return from Florida, produce another flourish of rhetoric about freedom and democracy, hoping to redirect attention elsewhere in the Middle East, to Israel and Palestine. He will be listened to, awkwardly, by his friends, and denounced by those who long ago lost patience with him. He is no longer relevant. In his characteristically pugilistic manner, the outgoing Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, called the manner of Saddam's execution deplorable, a view that most Labour MPs will concur with. And yet what is the value of remarks such as these from cabinet ministers who roll over, from Iraq, through the invasion of Lebanon last summer, and on to the recent decision to modernise Trident? What matters more are the views of the incoming premier, Gordon Brown. It is time that he, on sensitive issues such as these, makes himself fully accountable for his government's actions.
Bush, even as a lame duck, is the one who still matters most. In coming days he has to decide his strategy on Iraq. He faces two equally unpalatable choices: to bring forward a withdrawal of troops, leaving the country to fend for itself in chaos, or to try for one last hurrah. Our US editor reports (page 10) that the president is minded towards the latter. With his entourage split on the issue, Bush has convinced himself that a temporary "surge" of between 20,000 and 40,000 forces can provide the on-the-ground stability that Iraq has lacked for the past three years.
In one respect this is correct. Donald Rumsfeld's "invasion-lite" approach has now been universally repudiated. Having dismantled Saddam's mainly Sunni security forces in 2003, the US would have needed far greater troop levels to prevent what transpired - the de facto assumption of power by the once-downtrodden Shia majority and the subsequent settling of scores. Attempts to rebuild an army and police force have been haphazard at best. It is no wonder that for months the White House has been disparaging Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and that he has now declared that he longs to leave office, little over six months after assuming power.
Any increase in US forces could briefly stem some of the violence, although even that is debatable. The reverse could also be the case. Either way, the prospects appear bleak for a country on the verge of break-up. Brown, as premier, is duty bound to take a cold, hard look at what went wrong. He will be joined in that by virtually the entire Washington establishment, Republicans and Democrats, all keen to distance themselves from the hubris and naivety of Messrs Bush and Blair. The noose that snapped Saddam's neck also marked the death of a failed adventure.
A human right and a knight
This magazine rarely pays heed to the honours system, except when it is linked with malfeasance (an issue that Yates of the Yard is currently looking into). But on this occasion we should break the habit and pay due reverence to a knight of the realm.
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, to give him his formal appellation (just this once), is no ordinary lawyer. He has devoted his professional life to battling for human rights, battling for its victims and battling against its abusers. From Clive Ponting and the leaking of official documents about the sinking of the Belgrano, to the hanging of James Hanratty, to the arrest of Augusto Pinochet, Bindman saw civil liberties not as a middle-class indulgence (as some Labour home secretaries have seen them), but as an essential, perhaps the essential, part of progressive politics.
Bindman and his team have also represented the New Statesman through thick and thin, combining the necessary pragmatism of their advice with no little passion. In a country with some of the toughest libel laws and secrets legislation, Bindman has encouraged editors to face down bullying organisations and individuals. In characteristic fashion, he responded to his award by criticising the government on a number of issues, even though some of his past clients have been ministers. And he noted that he has been a member of the Labour Party "for many years, probably longer than Tony Blair".
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