Saddam Trial

Hoo boy... the trial of Saddam is likely to begin as the Presidential elections are heating upaccording to this article. In some ways, I can see this as being a great boost to the Bush campaign, but there's such a huge chance of this backfiring that I bet even Dubya is nervous. It all depends on how much of a say Saddam actually gets, and how much coverage his testimony receives. Although it's an 'open secret' that the US and the UK supported Saddam in the 80s, up to and after his gassing of the Kurds (which was only made possible by Western intervention) - I don't see this open secret getting a lot of coverage in the press.

Sure, for the UK it's fairly easy for the government to say 'That was an old cabinet, not us'... but with Bush, there are a lot of the same people involved. The 'we changed our mind on the issue of cosying up to repressive dictators' stance holds no water - after all, that's a flip-flop, and we all know what the Bush administration thinks of flip-flops (at least, flip-flops by Kerry. It's okay when Bush does it - that's just 'strong leadership'). But moreso, the evidence doesn't support that kind of denial - the US is still cosying up with repressive dictators, and until that changes, Saddam's testimony could easily be a timebomb ready to topple Bush's chances of re-election.

Fingers crossed.