Mark Steyn has an excellent editorial on why Saddam’s trial should not be turned over to an international tribunal. Steyn notes that despite the trial of Slobodon Milosevic for international war crimes relating to the "ethnic cleansing" of thousands of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, has recently won a seat in the Serbian Parliament as part of a sweep of radical nationalist forces in the country.
The "international community" has far more interest in criticizing the US than it does in upholding international law. Any international tribunal for Saddam would invariably be more about criticizing Bush than it would be about bringing the murderer of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis to justice. Given such a set of circumstances it is clear that the best interests of justice for the people of Iraq is to allow them to try their own tyrant.
So he’s going to be handed over to the Iraqi courts once they’re operational…?
They’ll probably create a special tribunal to handle Saddam as the courts won’t be quite ready. The Iraqis can handle such a trial, and since the crimes he committed were primarily against Iraqis he deserves to be tried by the Iraqi people. The last thing we need is for Saddam to get a Slobo trial that takes years and leaves him more popular than when he was captured.