The Trial of Saddam: The Shame of America's Mainstream Media

Posted by Barry Lando at 3:44 AM on January 10, 2007.

I confess a feeling of outrage. On January 8th, the Special Iraq Tribunal continued in Baghdad—Saddam’s usual high-backed seat now, of course, empty. He and his lieutenants were charged with the genocidal killing of tens of thousands of Kurds in the late 1980’s—a crime much more massive than the killings of 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail that had led to the tyrant’s precipitous execution.

The scene, as described by mainstream U.S. media—particularly the dramatic account of John Burns in the New York Times– was riveting. But my outrage stemmed not so much from the damning recorded evidence of Saddam and his thugs chilling talk of using chemical weapons against their own people, as from the fact that the American media –including the Times—continues to resolutely ignore what for Americans should be the most outrageous aspect of the Kurdish slaughter: the complicity of the West—particularly the governments of Ronald Reagan and George Bush pere–in that atrocity.

I admit my survey is far from complete—and welcome correction—but I have yet to see any recent piece by American reporters about the trial in the mainstream U.S. media that spells out the connections between the U.S. (and other great powers) with the horrific years of Saddam’s reign.

I would not just limit the issue to the slaughter of the Kurds, but the massacres that followed the uprisings of 1991—for which Saddam was also supposed to be tried–as well as the million or more Iraqis and Iranians who met their death in the 8 year war that followed Saddam’s invasion of Iran.

Even oped comments have been limited. If our mainstream media doesn’t give context—and by that, I mean more than once– to the Special Tribunal and our leaders’ self-righteous condemnation of Saddam and his crimes, how on earth is the public to have any real understanding of the courtroom farce being played out in Baghdad– some of the principal defendants missing from the dock?

For instance, one of the recordings played in the Baghdad court this week was identified by prosecutors as that of Saddam’s cousin, who came to be known as Chemical Ali, scornfully dismissing concern that foreign powers might react to Saddam’s using chemical weapons against the Kurds.

“I will strike them with chemical weapons and kill them all,” he was heard saying in the hushed courtroom. .

“Who is going to say anything? The international community? A curse on the international community!” the voice continued.

Chemical Ali had good reason for such assurances: beginning in 1983 the U.S. had willfully ignored the fact that Iraqis were using chemical weapons against the Iranians. Not only ignored the fact, but for years continued to block all attempts by the U.N. and later the U.S. Congress to condemn Saddam or impose sanctions against Iraq. Indeed, American satellite intelligence was used by the Iraqis to target Iranian troops.

The U.S. continued to furnish it in 1988, even after they realized Saddam was also using chemicals against his own Kurds. American officials refused to meet with Kurdish leaders who had evidence of the atrocities.

To my mind, the refusal of the major American media to report this woeful history is a continuation of the shameful—one could say cowardly– role that the same media played in the lead up to the 2003 invasion.

It’s not as if facts of the West’s cynical support of Saddam are unknown. They’re all there on the liberal/left webstites. Indeed, the British press has been outspoken of late on the hypocrisy of putting Saddam and his capos on trial without any mention of their powerful foreign confederates– leaders from George H.W Bush to Margaret Thatcher turning their backs on the tyrant’s bloody depredations. Too valuable an ally and business partner to undercut with worries of massive human rights violations.

In an attempt to ensure that such allegations not become part of the trial of Saddam, the Americans and their Iraqi allies who organized the Tribunal, stipulated in the regulations that only Iraqis could be tried before the court, not foreigners.

It’s perhaps understandable that the Iraqi judges and lawyers involved with the Special Iraqi Tribunal have kowtowed to that ruling—but why have the major American media ?

Tagged as: u.s. complicity, kurds, trial of saddam hussein

Barry Lando, a former 60 Minutes producer, is the author of "Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush." He also blogs at Barrylando.com.