Americans want execution for Saddam if convicted
Most people in the United States want Saddam Hussein to hang if he is convicted at his trial, a view not shared by some of the country’s long-time allies.
AP-Ipsos polling found that residents of eight other countries – most of whom have abolished the death penalty – prefer that the former Iraqi leader spend life in prison.
Similar, but less dramatic, disparities were found when US attitudes were compared to those in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and Spain on whether Saddam is getting a fair trial and whether Iraqis are better off since he was driven from office.
Saddam, who was captured nine months after US-led forces invaded Iraq, and seven co-defendants are being tried on charges of carrying out torture and illegal arrests and executions.
They face death by hanging if convicted.
Almost six in 10 in the US, 57 per cent, said Saddam should be executed if he is convicted in the trial now in its fifth month in Baghdad.
“If he truly destroyed as many lives as they say he did, then he doesn’t deserve to live,” said Craig Larson, a retired military man who lives in Chesapeake, Virginia.
The survey found most people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Spain willing to send Saddam to prison for the rest of his life. In Canada and Mexico, people were more inclined to favour a life sentence than execution.
The death penalty has been abolished in seven of the nine countries polled. South Korea has talked about abolishing it.
In the United States, where 1,012 have been executed over the past 28 years and at least 3,300 more are on death row, public support remains strong for state-sanctioned executions.
A study by Amnesty International found that more than nine of the 10 executions worldwide in 2004 were carried out in the United States, China, Iran and Vietnam.
Public support for sending Saddam to prison for life was strongest in Spain and Italy – where seven in 10 favoured a life sentence over death. A similar sentiment was expressed in Germany, where residents are still sensitive to the violence of the Nazis and Adolph Hitler during the Second World War.
“I hope that Saddam will be not sentenced to death,” said Giovanna Cippitello, sitting on a wall near the Pantheon in Rome, “but that he is made into a living example for other dictators around the world.”
In the United States, the survey found more than one-third favouring life in prison for Saddam if he is convicted.
“I am not one for putting people to death,” said Molly Gearin of Bullhead, Arizona. “I’m not God.”
The poll found 73 per cent of those surveyed in the United States said Saddam was getting a fair trial.
Many in the other countries surveyed were not so sure. A third or less of the people in Mexico, Spain and South Korea said Saddam was getting a fair trial. Less than half in France say he was getting a fair shake.
“The trial is not fair,” said Evelyne Jacotot, 56, a seller of rare stamps in Paris. “We’re judging him little by little, for each act he’s committed.”
The polling also found that two-thirds of the people in the US were convinced that Iraqis were better off now than they were under Saddam – a higher percentage than in the other countries polled.
People in Mexico, South Korea and Spain were far more inclined to say Iraqis were doing worse. In Germany and France – two countries that strongly opposed the US invasion of Iraq – people were about evenly divided on that question.
Residents of Britain, Italy and Canada – while not as optimistic as people in the United States – were more likely to say Iraqis were better off now than they were under Saddam than to say they are “worse off.”
Britain and Italy have been among the strongest allies of US Iraq policy.
The AP-Ipsos Poll interviewed 1,600 people in Mexico and about 1,000 adults in each of the other eight countries.
The surveys were conducted from February 10-19 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points in Mexico and 3 percentage points in the others.
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