So they have finally "got him". But the hardest part may yet be to come. Having captured Saddam Hussein alive, the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq must decide what to do with him. President George Bush, the former governor of the American state that carries out the most executions, seems already to have made up his mind. He favours the "ultimate penalty" for "the guy who tried to kill my Dad". But, he says, he also wants "justice". What form that will take has yet to be decided. There are not many useful historical or legal precedents for how to dispose of such a brutal tyrant. Mussolini was strung up by Italian partisans. Hitler shot himself. Stalin (supposedly) died of a stroke. Pol Pot ran off into the jungle. Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu was dragged out and shot after a (very) summary trial. Japan's Emperor Hirohito, it is true, was not only spared prosecution for war crimes during the second world war, but was even allowed to keep his job, albeit as a constitutional monarch with virtually no power. But this was because the Americans felt that preserving the imperial system would provide a veneer of continuity while they turned Japan into a democratic state.
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