Are the Saddamites winning this hand?

A Straight beats a Flush--right?

What the hell kind of a trial is taking place in Baghdad? The prosecutor’s duty, evidently, is to introduce witnesses--like an emcee at a charity drive-- and then just “let ‘em rip.” No questions to focus the witnesses on issue of the trial—just rambling monologues. Then up jumps Saddam or his half-wit half-brother and they start to rant and rave, sometimes making veiled threats about the testimony against him, but more substantively about the lack of smoke breaks; too infrequent changes of underwear; how the judges are American puppets; how Saddam is still "dah man," etc. At the end of the first (and only) full day of court time, Saddam tells the chief judge to “go to hell” and stomps out, vowing not to return the following day (and he didn't). If you've a penchant for self-flagellation, check it out on CourtTV (when the trial's actually taking place from time to time), or click here for a blow-by-blow transcript.

Then there’s the gaggle of defense lawyers sitting to one side, saying little of substance--one assumes they will come to life at Saddam's beckoning--presumably because the old dictator has clearly taken charge. Even nutty Ramsey Clark (the former Attorney-General on President Jimmy Carter’s painful four-year watch), one of Saddam's lawyers, is not given the opportunity to say much—which must frost him considerably, since he undertook the task hoping to get more international attention as the anti-American extraordinaire. So far, he's only been allowed an introductory remark, urging the judges to conduct a fair trial and, at the admonition of the chief judge, had to go buy a black robe out of respect for courtroom tradition in Iraq. I suspect the real reason he hasn't said anything is because he's as confused as everyone else.

Then there’s the blue curtain, behind which alleged witnesses testify—presumably because their lives would be in danger because of their courage (audacity?) in testifying. O.K., O.K. so we understand that Iraq’s a dangerous place, and that Saddam loyalists seem to be in charge of the country's violence. But shouldn’t someone (the witnesses' lawyers perhaps) help them write—or at least edit—their statements? The rambling, James Joycean style suggests . . . well, whatever.

One of the many U.S. Department of Justice lawyers who has been consulting the Iraqi court after Saddam’s capture held forth on C-SPAN a few days ago. He averred that he and his colleagues have spent many hours the past couple years providing the Iraqi court extensive research and procedural advice, so as to augment the judicial system that had "decayed" during Saddam's reign. Man, if our DOJ boys really invested that much time trying to "refresh" the long unused judicial system, please don't ever send that team to represent me--even in a no-contest divorce case.

I have the same sinking feeling I suspect President Bush and his administration are now experiencing: Someone made a bad mistake to hold Saddam’s trial in Iraq. Their initial theory was that handing Saddam over to Iraq would constitute a grand gesture that would also serve to assure the citizenry that we, the United States, were not “occupiers,” but are there to only serve Iraq’s needs until it is able to get on its own feet. At the time, Bush was operating under the impression that the Iraqis would be made even more grateful (than they were supposed to have already been) for Saddam’s capture, they would “feast” over the spectacle of Saddam’s trial, right there in “River City.” Evidently, the thinkers in the White House and in Foggy Bottom didn’t game out the “what-if” scenario in which Saddam’s bold take-over and contempt for the “Puppet Court” would energize not only Saddamites, but also reawaken a long-ingrained nostalgia for the dictator--unarguably a masterful "law and order guy"--who made the streets safe (except for the occasional unexpected visits from his henchmen, for whatever transgressions he pronounced).

To think of carting Saddam off to the Hague, as was the case with Serbian president Milosevic's, is now clearly out of the question—doing that would not only offend the present Court and its political supporters, but would give substance to the charge that, in fact, Saddam’s trial is an American-inspired “puppet trial.” And pulling the plug on the live TV drama that Saddam is creating would also invite the charge that Americans are censoring the old dictator! And, as the benevolent guys who won the freeging war, we sure wouldn't want to be accused of that, now would we? After all, we also have to show sensitivity for the weak sisters here at home, too!

Poker players will recognize that we’ve been out-bluffed and we're now being forced to play our hand or fold. Before letting the Iraqis work him over in their judicial system, perhaps we should have anticipated that the ancient land of Babylon has bred some pretty shrewd players easily capable of competing in poker with the best of the West Texas barroom rowdies or the more prim East Coast Ivy League set.