Madam - Your Editorial (Nov 7th) on the verdict in the Saddam trial is typically negative but is hardly surprising as your paper has been consistently hostile to and contemptuous of progress in Iraq ever since the 2003 US- led invasion.
You prefer to concentrate on what you call the trial's "grave political and legal shortcomings", as if the inner workings of the process obscure the fact that this trial marks a significant advance for freedom, justice and accountability in Iraq. Saddam's trial is unprecedented.
He is the only Arab dictator to account for his crimes. You talk of the "primacy of human rights" and make no mention of the human rights of the hundreds of thousands murdered by Saddam during his reign. It would be difficult to think of another trial in which the judges and lawyers put themselves in greater personal danger than that of Saddam. None of this is surprising however. If your newspaper had had its way, this brutal dictator would still be in power and elections would never have taken place in Iraq. So much for "progressivism". - yours, etc,
BEN WEATHERILL,
Crosthwaite Park East,
Dún Laoghaire.
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Madam, - If Saddam is to hang for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, who will hang for the deaths of the 40,000 Iraqis who have died since the liberation of Iraqi began? - Yours, etc,
KEITH MARTIN,
Páirc na Coille,
Westport,
Co Mayo.