"They shot in there and he started yelling, "Don't shoot, don't shoot, don't kill me.'" So I had to talk to him. I was the translator. I said, 'Just come out.' He kept saying, 'Don't shoot. Don't kill me.'"

In Arabic, Samir said he continued to pursuade Saddam to come out. He was about to come face to face with the tyrant who killed his loved ones. Saddam was the reason he fled Iraq in 1991 and eventually moved to St. Louis.

Samir says, "I was like, 'I got him.'" We all reached him and pulled him out. And we say Saddam Hussein he looks really old. He looks disgusting." There was also anger, "You want to beat the crap out of him. He destroyed millions in Iraq. I'm one. I left my family 13 years ago because of him."

Saddam couldn't fight back, but he did speak out, "He called me a spy. He called me a traitor. I had to punch him in face. They had to hold me back. I got so angry I almost lost my mind. I didn't know what to do. Choke him to death. That's really not good enough."

Saddam will be going to trial after the Iraq elections, but the wheels of justice are already turning for his henchmen.

However, the "international community" is trying to sabotage Iraq's effort to conduct credible trials.

Last month I spent a week in London working with the group of judges and prosecutors who form the core of the special tribunal. They are a distinguished group of patriots who know more than any outsider how critical the rule of law will be for the future of their country. Yes, just like other inexperienced judges on previous tribunals elsewhere in the developing world, they have much to learn about conducting complex trials in accordance with the most modern nuances of international law. But they are dedicated to doing so. As one Iraqi told me, "My job is to judge, not to murder."

Unfortunately, their pleas for assistance are going unanswered. For example, some of the most experienced practitioners from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia had initially agreed to participate in the London sessions. At the last minute, however, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan lamely insisted that these experts were all too busy in The Hague to help the Iraqis, and he ordered them to stay home.

Similarly, Amnesty International has issued a press release insisting that the "trial of Saddam Hussein must draw on international expertise," but has failed to provide any such help. Human Rights Watch took testimony from Iraqi victims who thought they were helping develop cases against Iraqis suspected of crimes. But according to American officials, the organization, without consulting the witnesses, refused to provide all the statements or to give all the victims' identities to the special tribunal. Human Rights Watch has even taken issue with the statute's ban on former Baath Party members sitting in judgment of the accused. Would the group have wanted Nazis passing judgment at Nuremberg?

. . . the world saw the grisly remains of Kurdish victims lifted from mass graves outside Hatra, Iraq, last month. But it went largely unreported that European countries declined Iraqi requests for forensic assistance, because they feared that any evidence they recovered would be used at trial. American and Iraqi officials, knowing that there was plenty of evidence in the first two mass graves uncovered, told the Europeans that if they assisted at the other five sites, what they found would be used only to identify victims, not for prosecutions. Still, Europe refused. Now the cash-strapped Iraqi government may have to leave the rest of the bodies at Hatra buried. The price for the victims' families will be high: Young women who cannot document the deaths of their fathers will not be able to marry in some places; widows may be unable to remarry.

Of course, if there are any irregularities in the trials, guess who will be the first to call them illegitimate? You think you can imagine how low the UN will sink, but no.

(I found this in a huge collection of articles about the Iraq Tribunal.)

UPDATE: Here's some good news.

UPDATE: More on the helpfulness of the UN.

UPDATE: What is really at stake in the legitimacy of an Iraqi trial of Saddam.

UPDATE: Kofi hopes the violence in Iraq affects the elections.