Should Saddam Be Executed?

Iraq's new president says he is against the death penalty as a matter of personal moral conviction. But Jalal Talabani is quite happy to play Pontius Pilate:

But you know, the presidency of Iraq are three people. These three must decide. So I can be absent. I can go on holiday and let the two others decide.

What moral conviction, eh?

Talabani expresses a widespread feeling that the death of Saddam would help quell the insugency because his supporters would give up hope of restoring him to the Presidency. But there is little proof that this is a main aim of the insurgents, and a lot of proof that other aims - expelling the USA and taking control of Iraq for Iraqis - are more dominant.

The death penalty is a symptom of a violent culture. Setting up a proper, popularly supported judicial process and allowing Saddam to rot away the rest of his life in a jail cell - in a 100% secure environment - would say a lot more about the reformation of Iraq than the blood-thirsty global spectacle of a public execution.