Rich, if I could add one thing to your list, it would be to get Saddam convicted and executed.

His trial, which is sneaking up on us with everything else that’s going on between here and there, begins next Wednesday, Oct 19. Conceivably, there could be as many as 14 separate trials — but I doubt it and think it would be a terrible mistake to let this go on and on for years, a la Milosevic.

The Iraqis have wisely decided to start by focusing the first trial on the massacre of 143 Shia in the Village of Dujail (near Baghdad). Though less atrocious than many of Saddam’s crimes against humanity, this is thought to be the one in which the proof is tightest and most overwhelming. Upon conviction, he can get the death penalty for that.

Politically, this would probably not be enough. One important reason we do criminal trials is catharsis. The victims have to feel they have been avenged — it’s a crucial part of getting them to buy into the justice system, which is especially necessary for a fledgling post-Saddam Iraq. So at least one of Saddam’s many unspeakable crimes against the Kurds will almost certainly have to be tried, as well.

But once that happens, he should be executed if a capital sentence has been voted. The resources for securing the court so these trials can take place will be enormous. But more centrally, both Saddam and some in the Sunni/Iraqi insurgency (as distinguished from the imported and Iraqi jihadists) actually see him being re-installed at some point. Every minute he lives, he is a destabilizing force in a country that would still have more than enough of them without him.