On the bright side, at least Saddam isn't being tried in some sovereignty-stomping international court staffed by, say Dutch people, and lacking the death penalty. Now THAT would be a real problem.

While many have thought that Saddam first became involved with U.S. intelligence agencies at the start of the September 1980 Iran-Iraq war, his first contacts with U.S. officials date back to 1959, when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim. In July 1958, Qasim had overthrown the Iraqi monarchy in what one former U.S. diplomat, who asked not to be identified, described as "a horrible orgy of bloodshed."...... .....Little attention was paid to Qasim's bloody and conspiratorial regime until his sudden decision to withdraw from the [anti-Soviet Baghdad] pact in 1959, an act that "freaked everybody out" according to a former senior U.S. State Department official.