TIM O'BRIEN: The dramatic arrest of Saddam Hussein last December ...
L. PAUL BREMER (U.S. Civilian Administrator of Iraq): Ladies and gentlemen: we got him.
O'BRIEN: But "getting" Saddam is raising thorny questions. Like: What now? What do we do with him?
He could become the worst mass murderer ever to be brought to trial. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin -- they all died without ever being brought to justice.Only Slobodan Milosevic, in The Hague, is experiencing what many want for Saddam.
But what is "justice" in a case like this?
Dr. GARY BASS (Princeton University): It can't be a normal definition of justice. When we think about justice in the -- normally, in the domestic criminal system we think about assault, aggravated assault, assault with intent. But all of those categories basically explode when you're talking about somebody who's responsible for atrocities on the scale of a Saddam.
O'BRIEN: Does that automatically mean the execution of the Iraqi dictator?
Donald Shriver, former President of Union Theological Seminary, opposes the death penalty -- even for Saddam.
DONALD SHRIVER (Author, AN ETHIC FOR ENEMIES): Taking evil seriously means you punish the evildoer. The big question is, do you treat the evildoer with the same evil in return?O'BRIEN: How would Iraqis view any punishment less than death?
Cherif Boussiani is President of the Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University in Chicago.
CHERIF BOUSSIANI (President, Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, Chicago): In that society, without the death penalty, the people will not feel there is a closure. The symbolism of the death penalty there is that it brings to closure within that society that terrible experience that they have gone through.
O'BRIEN: Ayad Saidi wants death for Saddam. He fled to the United States more than 10 years ago, leaving behind his mother, sisters, and brother.
AYAD SAIDI: We have a food in Iraq, a special dish they call kabob, which is grinded meat. Saddam should be grinded, and people will taste his meat, and then bring him alive again, and grind him again, for many many times to feel the pain.O'BRIEN: Some people, not necessarily Iraqis, do not want the death penalty for Saddam. Like members of the European Union -- which includes Great Britain, America's chief ally in the war.
Again, Donald Shriver.
Mr. SHRIVER: My opposition to the death penalty, which I share with South Africa and the European Union, really has to do with a society's need to curtail revenge. Revenge is like a virus. It spreads.
O'BRIEN: The venue of any trial could be a factor. No international tribunal -- like the one now trying Slobodan Milosevic -- would impose the death penalty. The most likely venue is in Iraq itself.
President GEORGE W. BUSH: The Iraqis need to be very much involved. They were the people that were brutalized by this man.
O'BRIEN: But as of now, Iraq may lack experienced judges, investigators, and prosecutors. Some have suggested that international jurists at least assist. There is wide agreement that any trial not only be fair, but that it be seen as fair.
Prof. BOUSSIANI: It will send the first message in the history of the Arab world that dictators and tyrants in the Arab world who abuse their people will not be able to get away with it. And it's not going to be at the hands of an international tribunal or a western power. The people themselves will be empowered to bring those tyrants to justice.
O'BRIEN: Professor Boussiani is currently in Iraq consulting with Iraqi jurists and the country's Governing Council. He says putting Saddam on trial serves many purposes beyond retribution and deterrence.
Prof. BOUSSIANI: If you really want the world's sympathy and you want the high moral ground for regime change in Iraq, you've got to show how terrible the regime was.
Dr. BASS: When Saddam goes up there, I can't imagine he's going to do us any favors. He's going to be sort of like Goering at Nuremberg; he's going to sort of rail against American imperialism, he's going to make appeal to the wider Arab world, he's going to present himself as the defender of Iraq -- and Islam -- against a new American colonialism.
Prof. BOUSSIANI: Remember that when Baghdad was seized and the looting took place, the looting meant that all of the documents in the ministries were looted or burned. We've lost much of that evidence. Many of the mass graves were opened and the remains taken. We've lost that evidence. Who is collecting the evidence? Nobody is.
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