Saddam would have done much better up a tree in north Dublin

USUALLY, good advice is that when you realise you’re in a hole, you should stop digging.

The problem for Saddam Hussein is that he did stop digging and was eventually found by American forces.

He might have had a better chance of evading discovery if he had hidden in north Dublin, an area which never gives up its secrets, as we know, despite the most intensive Government probing. He could have been perched up a tree there and never been spotted.

Having been ferreted out of his hiding hole, the former despot has undergone a remarkable transformation, and I am not just referring to the free dental and hair makeover he got on television.

From being "compliant and co-operative," he has gone to being "sarcastic and unhelpful", according to officials in Washington. Seeing that he's in the tender, loving care of the CIA at a secret location, I don't think that sarcasm is a good idea.

It's not exactly the best time to be a smart-ass.

What he's got to be sarcastic about is rather difficult to appreciate unless, of course, he was doing one of those distance learning courses on assertiveness to while away the hours while he was down the hole. That might explain the $750,000 he had with him, that he had hopes of travelling after the troubles were over.

Or maybe he intended to donate it to George Dubya's re-election campaign and get an American passport. That's what would happen here, had he ever been unlucky enough to be found up a tree in north Dublin.

However, it would not explain the fact that he failed to assert himself with one of the AKAs, or handguns, he also had with him when the GIs dropped in.

Maybe the sarcasm sprang from a suggestion that he would be spared the ultimate sanction for all those deaths he was responsible for during his 35-year reign of terror if he co-operated with the gentle folk from the CIA.

Whatever else you can say about Saddam Hussein and it would take hours he's not a fool. Like himself, he knows that President George Dubya Bush has a soft spot for the death penalty and believes it's a great way of curing people of their murderous intent.

While the Pres was governor of Texas, he cured about 152 people of such

anti-social behaviour by despatching them from death row to the ultimate seat of judgment. As a result, he has the doubtful honour of being the governor who has overseen the greatest number of executions in the US since the death penalty was reinstated.

As a matter of fact, Dubya needn't have gone as far as Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction. He could have looked in his home state, with much more success. Up to 1923, before the advent of technology, Texas executed its death row prisoners by hanging. After that, up to 1977, the favourite method of despatch from death row became the electric chair.

There was another change of mind that year and the state switched to execution by lethal injection.

I hope Saddam Hussein doesn't get the Irish Examiner today, or surf the net, because I really would hate him to read this. Although, I suppose, he won't be doing either for a while.

I don't know - apart from Saddam Hussein's own methods what procedure they have in Iraq. But if it's the same as Texas, it's not very pleasant, not that I suppose any form of execution is.

Lethal injection uses a solution consisting of sodium thiopental (a lethal dose to sedate the person), pancuronium bromide (a muscle relaxant which collapses the diaphragm and lungs) and potassium chloride (which stops the heartbeat).

It might be presumptuous to assume Saddam will get the thumbs down, but things ain't looking good right now, especially with Dubya having given his verdict at this stage.

"This is a disgusting tyrant who deserves the ultimate justice. I mean, he is a torturer, a murderer... they had rape rooms. This is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice," said Dubya, in his usual folksy way.

NOW, in fairness to the Pres, he does not intend that this should be a lynching without any formality, like a courtroom. He insists he does not want a kangaroo court and said it would be up to the Iraqi people to decide what

Saddam Hussein's fate should be.

He said that any trial process would have to be in public and stand international scrutiny and in a manner to be

determined by the Iraqis, meaning the governing council.

So, what's the attitude of that august body to the ultimate sanction?

When asked if the death penalty could be considered for Saddam, Iraq's governing council leader, Abdelaziz al-Hakim, said: "Yes. Absolutely."

No ifs and buts there.

Muwaffaq al-Rubaiye, a member of the council, who wants the trial to start in the next few weeks, said: "He could be executed on July 1."

Very definitely, no ifs or buts in that quarter. He's even got the date pencilled in.

Now remember it was the US that appointed the Iraqi governing council and power is due to be handed over to a provisional government in June which, as we all know, falls shortly before July 1.

Saddam can also forget about that renowned sense of British justice, if the thought ever crosses his mind to appeal to the sensibilities of America's coalition collaborators, because there's not much sympathy there either.

Tony Blair has already made it plain that Britain would go along with the execution of Saddam, but in deference to the liberals there, they would only do so "reluctantly".

Typical colonial double-standards: hang 'em in the sticks, but not on the mainland because they are civilised enough to have done away with the death penalty.

A case of Britannia waives the rules.

He told the House of Commons that it was up to Iraq to decide how to try Saddam Hussein and what penalties to impose. He called for an "independent and fair process" and said that the Iraqis had the "capability of doing that".

Did one hear the sound of water sloshing around as Tones washed his hands of it knowing, as he does, that the Iraqi governing council is determined to resist calls for an international tribunal and the US supports that?

Possibly one of the reasons that it does is because there is a lot of dirty linen to wash and America would definitely not come out looking whiter than white, insofar as Iraq and Saddam Hussein are concerned.

Let's face it, the call by Iran for an international tribunal is a bit mind-boggling, but the sting in the tail is in the reason why the Iranians are becoming so public- minded.

One of their government spokesmen said that the tribunal "should determine who equipped this dictator to disrupt our region and impose three big crises on our region".

Who indeed?