CHARGES against Saddam Hussein in a Baghdad courtroom on Thursday drew comparisons by the Western media with the fate of former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevich. This was an uncontroversial comparison because the villain was also regarded as a butcher, but also a less accurate one than might be made.
Politically, Saddam’s unravelling today can be compared better to that of former Panamanian President Gen Juan Manuel Noriega. The two authoritarian presidents had been on the US payroll, but when they became too wayward they had to be toppled and arrested on some flimsy pretext – for Noriega, a supposed drug connection for which there was scanty evidence.
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