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Today we have reports that Saddam - now that he has been sentenced to death - suddenly supports peace, love and understanding.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two days after being condemned to death, Saddam Hussein was back in court on Tuesday urging Iraqis "to forgive ... and shake hands" as sectarian tensions over his sentence hampered U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.
..."I call on all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile and shake hands," Saddam, in relatively subdued mood compared to the defiance he showed on Sunday, told the court.
If he'd supported this view during all the rest of his life leading up to this time, Iraq would be a far better place.
Here's an example of the principals by which he ruled, reported by Bob Woodward. Via BBC News:
The American journalist Bob Woodward, in his third book about the Bush administration at war, State of Denial, relates a story told by Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, who was the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States.
Prince Bandar recalls a conversation that Saddam Hussein had with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia after a group of extremists took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979.
The rebels had been caught and thrown into jail, and this was the Iraqi leader's advice: "In my mind, there is no question that you are going to kill all 500, that's a given.
"Listen to me carefully, Fahd. Every man who in this group who has a brother or father - kill them. If they have a cousin who you think is man enough to go for revenge, kill them.
"Those 500 people are a given. But you must spread the fear of God in everything that belongs to them, and that's the only way you can sleep at night."
That seems to have been the tactic that Saddam Hussein used at Dujail in 1982, when - after an attempt to assassinate him - 148 people were killed. It is the crime for which he has been sentenced to hang.
Perhaps Saddam Hussein will accept his fate on the gallows as an occupational hazard of being a despot. Or maybe he never intended his own rules to apply to himself.
