Saddam is a bastard who got as far as he did with a substantial amount of US assistance. Pinochet is also a bastard who got where he is with a substantial amount of American assistance, as were the Marcos clan. The United States clearly does not object to bastards who kill, imprison unjustly and torture their own people. It objects to certain types of bastards. The origanal bastard went by the generic terms "Communist" "Pink" and so on. Since the end of the socialist enemy ( but we're not finished yet folks) the new demon has been labelled "Terrorist".

It's worth remembering that Saddam had nothing to do with Bin Laden, he opposed him on doctrinal grounds. He had nothing, apparently, to do with 9/11 either. Since he has now been shown to have no weapons of mass destruction, he does not fit the Bin Laden model of a terrorist, and he certainly didn't blow himself up when they came to arrest him.

The US has made much of the special rules protecting leaders of nations. Whatever else Saddam was, he was a national leader.
If he is not accorded the same rights any normal human being could expect of a nation calling itself a Western Liberal Democracy,
Then future US leaders have grounds to feel very unsefe in the future. As with all held unjustly at Guantanamo Bay, in Abu Ghraib and everywhere else that secret dirty deeds are being done by pentagon stooges, charge him, try him openly and honestly-or let him go.