The Tricky Nature of Proving Genocide against Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi Special Tribuna

Author: Michael J. Kelly

There is a small palm tree in a garden surrounded by walls near the airport in Baghdad. An elderly bearded man who has turned to writing poetry and
reading the words of God in recent weeks goes out to the garden for an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon. He tends to the tree, putting stones around the base and making sure it has enough water to survive Iraq’s midsummer.
When his hour and a half is over, Saddam Hussein goes back to his cell.
Once, he had dominion over all of Iraq. Now, he is stripped of all the riches and delusions; all he has left is a little time each day to cultivate a garden
that isn’t even his.
Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator, sits in solitary confinement under the care of U.S. military police awaiting trial by the newly minted Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) for a laundry list of crimes committed during his thirty-three years in power. He was toppled by an American-led
invasion in March 2003, and remained in hiding until discovered by U.S. forces in a six-foot underground “spider hole,” armed only with a pistol that he declined to use.2 He gardens while he waits for his trial.