Assassination is wrong, even for tyrants
Leader
Tuesday June 24, 2003
The Guardian
Saddam Hussein has now been
killed three times by US forces in Iraq - unless they missed him and he is still
alive. That seems to be the situation after the latest "strike" last
week on a convoy of vehicles somewhere near the Syrian border. As always, it is
a confused story. The Pentagon will not say whether the attack was the result of
intelligence or was just launched on a hunch. It is not confirmed whether Syrian
border guards were killed or wounded during the action. The convoy may or may
not have included a party of smugglers. What is clear is that the US feels
entitled to launch a Hellfire missile whenever it sees some unidentified
vehicles heading for Syria. The message is that Ba'athists, smugglers or
ordinary travellers should all beware.
What seems lost in Washington's post-strike inquiry is any scruple as to
whether the US is justified in behaving this way. It is not just that, once more,
innocent Iraqis may lose their lives because they are in the wrong place at the
wrong time, or that the desert is not a free-fire zone. The aim of the war, Mr
Bush reiterated time and again in the run-up, was to "bring to justice"
the Iraqi leader and his associates. Many Iraqi civilians in recent weeks have
also raised their own demand that their former rulers should be brought to
account. Of course there may be reasons why the US would find it inexpedient to
put Saddam on trial - for a start he might say something about the support he
enjoyed from Washington in the Iraq-Iran war. But to obliterate him with an
anti-tank weapon is a policy of vengeance, not of justice.
Accepting for the sake of argument Washington's claim that the war was not
illegal, the earlier "strikes" on Saddam of March 19 and April 7 could
perhaps be regarded as part of the military action. That is not a reasonable
claim today when the US, as an "occupying force" under the Hague and
Geneva conventions, must accept much stricter constraints. (Washington rejects
the definition: we prefer the judgment of Kofi Annan.)
Military resistance to the US is continuing, but this does not entitle the
Pentagon - which denies that the Iraqi opposition is under central control - to
kill indiscriminately. Washington's shift to the offensive against Saddam's
remnants has an air of desperation, as public opinion begins to chafe at
mounting casualties. Yet whether it is Saddam or smugglers, the US does not have
the right to blast them from the air.