Reply #19: For me, this was why the trial was flawed from the start

[gratuitous]

As you say, totalitarian regimes like Hussein's are real sticklers for the law, even if they have to pass a law after the fact to justify their actions. For the time of his reign in Iraq, Hussein was the law, and whatever he said, went. Trying to convict him of crimes under Iraqi law is self-defeating; it probably can't be done.

But take him before an international tribunal and try him for crimes against humanity, and you have a good chance of charging him with crimes that will actually stick. The problem, of course, is that the United States doesn't want to turn Saddam over to the ICC, because it would like to continue to ignore its jurisdiction. So messy and inconvenient, don’t you know, for the world’s last superpower to have to answer for its actions to anyone, let alone a bunch of furriners over in The Hague.