Reports that it was imminent yesterday sent a cold shiver through me. I wondered why. It's not that I am against the death penalty. And if it didn't exist in Iraq, I would be in favour of inventing it just for the likes of Saddam Hussein. It's not just the personal delight he, and his sons, seemed to take in cruelty and murder, it was the fact it was a cold-blooded instrument of policy.
And her is where the morality begins to get complicated. I don't suppose I'm the only one to be repelled by the hypocrisy of Tony Blair, quite prepared to sacrifice his own men and authorise the deaths of hundreds of innocent people in a good cause, again an instrument of state policy, and yet wring his hands over the execution of the one man whose elimination was the good cause in the first place (actually, it was in the second place, after WMD discovery was relegated).
It's so easy for people who can say things like 'capital punishment is immoral'. How wonderful it must be to have been granted such insight into right and wrong. To be able to say that capital punishment is wrong but abortion is OK and the killing of children in a 'just war' is acceptable. The rest of us have to balance a variety of instincts and a tangle of arguments and practical considerations before we can make a judgment.
A million people will die today, some before they were born, some in stupid accidents, some because of carelessness or poverty or murder or war, some through their own choice or the choice of 'merciful' relatives and doctors. Hardly any will deserve to die. And hardly any death will make a lasting difference.
Saddam deserves to die and his death just might make a difference. But I know when I see the inevitable scenes of jubilant Iraquis dancing in the streets and firing off their guns into the air, like lethal children with Christmas presents, I will feel sick.
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