<<If Americans are smart, this political ploy will backfire on election day. >>
I don't think it's that big a deal to Americans. The thing that really gives away the kangaroo-court nature of the proceedings was that the "Iraqi government" [LOL] replaced the judge in the middle of the trial for being too pro-defence. THAT'S blatant. If it happened in the midst of an American or Canadian criminal trial, there'd be all hell to pay. But it passed without a ripple through the U.S. MSM, probably because everybody realizes that Saddam really is a murderer and a torturer and so nobody really gives a shit anyway.
I don't think the U.S. had to have a hand in that necessarily. The puppets have their own little blood feuds to avenge and there was surely enough motivation to ensure a prosecutor's victory that the U.S. didn't need to intervene.
The U.S. intervention was clearly in the timing of the verdict. There wasn't even enough time to prepare detailed reasons, so the verdict was rushed through in summary form , with reasons to come later, obviously to beat the deadline of the U.S. elections. But since the fixed nature of the trial had already been clearly demonstrated by the replacement of trial judge, the timing of the release of the verdict was a matter of relatively minor importance and not likely to excite much comment.
