Cardinal condemns US video footage

A TOP Vatican official said yesterday he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein and criticised the US military for showing video footage of him being treated “like a cow”.

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations, said it would be “illusory” to think the arrest of the former Iraqi president would heal all the damage caused by a war which the Holy See opposed.

“I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures,” he said.

“Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him,” he said.

Cardinal Martino was referring to the videotape released by the US military which showed a grubby, bearded and dishevelled Saddam receiving a medical examination by a military doctor after his capture in an underground hole.

Cardinal Martino was one of the Vatican officials most strongly opposed to the US-led invasion of Iraq.

“It’s true that we should be happy that this (arrest) has come about because it is the watershed that was necessary... we hope that this will not have worse and other serious consequences,” Cardinal Martino said.

“But it is not the total solution to the problems of the Middle East,” he said.

Cardinal Martino said the Vatican hoped the arrest of Saddam “can contribute to promoting peace and the democratisation of Iraq.”

He added: “But is seems to me to be illusory to hope that this will repair the dramas and the damage of the defeat for humanity that a war always brings about.”

The Vatican did not consider the war in Iraq “a just war” because it was not backed by the UN and because the Vatican believed more negotiations were necessary to avoid it. Cardinal Martino said the Vatican wanted an “appropriate institution” to put Saddam on trial but he did not elaborate.

US forces are keeping the ousted 66-year-old dictator at a secret location for interrogation before he is put on trial in the months ahead.

Cardinal Martino was at a news conference to present the World Day of Peace message, in which Pope John Paul criticised the US for invading Iraq without UN backing.