EDITORIAL – A legacy of brutality

It was a brutal end for a brutal man. But give Saddam Hussein credit for spunk; up to his final moments, he showed the steely nerve that allowed him to keep a stranglehold on a country like Iraq for 24 years. As his jailers prepared to put the noose around his neck, Saddam refused to wear a hood, preferring to look his executioners in the eye.

The ruthlessness of his regime brought Saddam to the Iraqi court whose authority to try him he challenged to the very end. The death sentence was handed down for crimes against humanity in a case that did not include other mass murders during Saddam’s reign. His ruthlessness did not spare even his sons-in-law, whom he ordered executed on suspicion of treachery.

That brutality has left permanent scars on generations of Iraqis, and the scars cannot heal as sectarian violence continues to claim thousands of lives in Iraq. The US-backed Iraqi government does not acknowledge observations that the country has plunged into a full-blown civil war. It does acknowledge that al-Qaeda has taken advantage of the chaos following the collapse of Saddam’s regime, using the situation to fan anti-US sentiment in the Muslim world.

No one is naïve enough to think that Saddam’s execution will end the violence in Iraq. The conflict is serving as a training ground for terrorists, just like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the proxy war that ensued produced an army of jihadis led by Osama bin Laden.

Yet as news of Saddam’s execution was flashed around the world, victims of his brutal regime rejoiced. The celebration was tempered by the certainty that Saddam’s death would not mean the end of his legacy of brutality or the problems that Iraq continues to face. But with so few causes for rejoicing in a land of deadly violence, there were Iraqis who allowed themselves the luxury of dancing in the streets over one man’s death.