Ferocious rule
But something much bigger probably underlies his plea of not guilty - the sense that, even if he was responsible for ordering the Dujail massacre, he was innocent of doing anything wrong.
Saddam Hussein's notion of governing a restless, difficult country like Iraq was that it could only be done with ferocity.
In that he was no different from the presidents and kings before him; no different either from the British, who had the mandate from the League of Nations to run Iraq after 1920, and who used some ferocious tactics to try to protect their rule.
They took over, full of the conviction that as the most powerful military nation on earth, with the best political system in human history, the Iraqis would be delighted to be ruled by them.
Within six months the British were negotiating a way out, and after twelve years (imperial powers hate to seem to be cutting and running) they gave up the mandate and left.
Unlikely hero
Whether history will repeat itself now, we will have to wait and see.
Like the British, like the kings, like coup-leader General Qassem and the rest, Saddam believed he had a right to govern Iraq by force.
When his ambassador in London was called into the Foreign Office in 1988 to receive a formal complaint about the use of chemical weapons at Halabja, where five thousand men, women and children died, his answer was simple: "But they're our people." In other words, Saddam could do what he liked with them.
Saddam may also face trial for murders in Halabja in 1988
It is a simple enough justification. If the job of keeping Iraq together required it, Saddam believed, then any amount of force was justified. He did not kill people merely because he was blood-thirsty; in fact, unlike his unspeakable son Uday, Saddam seemed to gain no particular pleasure from having people tortured and murdered. It was simply something that had to be done.
Saddam may have a longer-term ambition, other than simply keeping on existing - to turn himself into a martyr.
He and his lawyers will argue again and again that the US and Britain had no right to march into Iraq and overturn its government, no matter how much they might have disliked it.
Hundreds of millions of people around the world, including plenty who live in nasty dictatorships, will agree.
That really would be a strange outcome - for the worst tyrant of recent times to emerge from all of this as a hero.
But something much bigger probably underlies his plea of not guilty - the sense that, even if he was responsible for ordering the Dujail massacre, he was innocent of doing anything wrong.
Saddam Hussein's notion of governing a restless, difficult country like Iraq was that it could only be done with ferocity.
In that he was no different from the presidents and kings before him; no different either from the British, who had the mandate from the League of Nations to run Iraq after 1920, and who used some ferocious tactics to try to protect their rule.
They took over, full of the conviction that as the most powerful military nation on earth, with the best political system in human history, the Iraqis would be delighted to be ruled by them.
Within six months the British were negotiating a way out, and after twelve years (imperial powers hate to seem to be cutting and running) they gave up the mandate and left.
Unlikely hero
Whether history will repeat itself now, we will have to wait and see.
Like the British, like the kings, like coup-leader General Qassem and the rest, Saddam believed he had a right to govern Iraq by force.
When his ambassador in London was called into the Foreign Office in 1988 to receive a formal complaint about the use of chemical weapons at Halabja, where five thousand men, women and children died, his answer was simple: "But they're our people." In other words, Saddam could do what he liked with them.
Saddam may also face trial for murders in Halabja in 1988
It is a simple enough justification. If the job of keeping Iraq together required it, Saddam believed, then any amount of force was justified. He did not kill people merely because he was blood-thirsty; in fact, unlike his unspeakable son Uday, Saddam seemed to gain no particular pleasure from having people tortured and murdered. It was simply something that had to be done.
Saddam may have a longer-term ambition, other than simply keeping on existing - to turn himself into a martyr.
He and his lawyers will argue again and again that the US and Britain had no right to march into Iraq and overturn its government, no matter how much they might have disliked it.
Hundreds of millions of people around the world, including plenty who live in nasty dictatorships, will agree.
That really would be a strange outcome - for the worst tyrant of recent times to emerge from all of this as a hero.
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