What the hell is this?  Of all the things Saddam is accused of, his trial centers on events in 1982??  People tried to assasinate him, and he had them killed.  Not a nice thing to do, but perhaps he considered them "terrorists" in his country? 

What about the charges of genocide?  If those charges are real, why isn't he being tried for that? 

Something tells me that this is a kangaroo court with only one outcome - guilty and execution within 30 days of his appeal (which will no doubt be quick and rejected).  

The man was on our side when we were against Iran.  But I guess our CIA is to blame for not noticing how he was moving troops against the Kuwait border... Dumb CIA didn't notice?  I'll bet they did but if we didn't say anything to Saddam, did we give him the notion that we didn't mind? 

I don't think Saddam was a good guy, but something's fishy here.  If he's the monster that they say he is, why isn't he being tried on much more serious charges?  Or is this a quick path to execution so that he doesn't get the chance to tell the world his story -- and it would be interesting to learn more about what he has to say.

Former Dictator Pleads Innocent to Murder

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Oct. 19) - Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of premeditated murder and torture Wednesday, arguing with judges and challenging the legitimacy of the court as his trial opened under heavy security in the former headquarters of his Baath Party.

Saddam and seven former members of his regime could face the death penalty if convicted over the 1982 massacre of nearly 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail.

After presiding judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin read the defendants their rights and the charges against them -- which also include forced expulsions and illegal imprisonment -- he asked each for their plea. He started with the ousted dictator, saying "Mr. Saddam, go ahead. Are you guilty or innocent?"

Saddam could be seen saying something too quietly to be heard, and Amin read out the plea: "Innocent."

	Sources: nytimes.com, usatoday.com | Photos: Getty Images

Earlier, at the opening of the trial, the 68-year-old ousted Iraqi leader -- looking thin with a salt-and-pepper beard in a dark gray suit and open-collared white shirt -- stood and asked the presiding judge: "Who are you? I want to know who you are."

"I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect to its people, and I retain my constitutional right as the president of Iraq," he said, brushing off the judge's attempts to interrupt him. "Neither do I recognize the body that has designated and authorized you, nor the aggression because all that has been built on false basis is false."

Amin, a Kurd, tried to get Saddam to formally identify himself but Saddam refused and finally sat. Amin read his name for him, calling him the "former president of Iraq," bringing a protest from Saddam, who insisted he was still in the post.

The panel of five judges will both hear the case and render a verdict in what could be the first of several trials of Saddam for atrocities carried out during his 23-year-rule.

The defendants sat in three rows of black chairs, with Saddam in the first row, partitioned behind a low white metal barrier, in the center of the court directly in front of the judges bench.

Starting the session, Amin called the defendants into the room one by one. Saddam was the last to enter, escorted by two Iraqi guards in bulletproof vests who guided him by the elbow. He glanced at journalists watching through bulletproof glass from an adjoining room. He motioned for his escorts to slow down a little.

After sitting, he greeted his co-defendants, saying "Peace be upon you," sitting next to co-defendant Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court.

The other defendants include Saddam's former intelligence chief Barazan Ibrahim, former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and other lower-level Baathist civil servants. Most were wearing traditional Arab robes and they complained that they were not allowed to have headdresses, so court officials brought out red headdresses for them. Many Sunni Arabs consider it shameful to appear in public without the checkered scarf, tied by a cord around the forehead.

Ramadan also refused to identify himself to the judge. "I repeat what President Saddam Hussein has said," he added. The other defendants stood one by one and stated their names.

The trial is taking place in the marble building that once served as the National Command Headquarters of his feared Baath Party. The building in Baghdad's Green Zone -- the heavily fortified district where Iraq's government, parliament and the U.S. Embassy are located -- was ringed with 10-foot blast walls and U.S. and Iraqi troops, with several Humvees and at least one tank deployed outside. U.S. soldiers led sniffer dogs around the grounds, looking for explosives.

	Quotes From Saddam
	Saddam had a lot to say in his July 2004 court appearance. Reuters ''I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq.'' "Why would you behave in a manner that we might call hasty later on?" "You know that this is all a theater by Bush, the criminal, to help him with his campaign.'' "How could Saddam be tried over a Kuwait that said it will reduce Iraqi women to 10-dinar prostitutes? He defended Iraq's honor and revived its historical rights over those dogs.'' Source: AP

The identities of judges had been a tightly held secret to ensure their safety, though Amin's name was revealed just before the trial began. The courtroom camera repeatedly focused on him.

The defendants are facing charges that they ordered the killings in 1982 of nearly 150 people in the mainly Shiite village of Dujail north of Baghdad after a failed attempt on the former dictator's life.

In Wednesday's session, the defense is expected to ask for a three-month adjournment. The court is expected to grant one, though for how long is not known.

The trial was aired with around a 20-minute delay on state-run Iraqi television and on satellite stations across Iraq and the Arab world, though it cut out occasionally and sound quality was often poor.

Many Iraqis were gathered around sets to watch. Salman Zaboun Shanan, a Shiite construction worker, sat with his family at home in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, having taken the day off from work to watch the trial. When Saddam appeared on television, Shanan's wife Sabiha Hassan spit.

"I hope he is executed, and that anyone who suffered can take a piece of his flesh," said Shanan, who was imprisoned during Saddam's rule, as was Sabiha and several of their sons.

But across the Tigris River in the mainly Sunni Arab district of Azamiyah, some were embittered over the trial of Saddam, whose regime was dominated by Sunni Arabs who have now lost their power.

"Saddam is the lesser of evils," said Sahab Awad Maaruf, an engineer, comparing Saddam to the current Shiite-Kurdish led government. "He's the only legitimate leader for Iraqis."

In particular, the Shiite Muslim majority and the Kurdish minority -- the two communities most oppressed by Saddam's regime -- have eagerly awaited the chance to see the man who ruled Iraq with unquestioned and total power held to justice.

The world will be watching Saddam's trial to see whether Iraq's new Shiite and Kurdish leaders can rise above politics and prejudice and give the former dictator a fair hearing. Human rights group have criticized the government for trying to influence the trial and that considerable U.S. logistical and financial aid to the tribunal could lend credibility to charges that it will mete out "victors' justice."

The court is also operating not only under its own rules -- laid out when the court was created in 2003 while Iraq was still run by American administrators -- but also by a 1971 Saddam-era criminal law that some have criticized as not up to international standards.

That law says the judges can issue a guilty verdict if they are "satisfied" by the evidence -- seen as lower standard of proof than "convinced beyond a reasonable doubt."

Saddam's defense lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said Tuesday he would ask for the postponement so he can better prepare the case.

He will also challenge the special tribunal's competence to try the case, arguing that Saddam remains the legitimate president and the court is illegal, because it was created under U.S. occupation.

Saddam was ousted after U.S.-led forces swept into Iraq in March 2003 and marched in to Baghdad. He fled the capital and was on the run for nearly eight months, until American forces found in him hiding in a cellar in a rural area outside his hometown of Tikrit north of Baghdad on Dec. 13, 2003.

He has been held since in a U.S. detention facility at Baghdad International Airport.

Prosecutors are preparing other cases to bring to trial against Saddam and his officials _ including for the Anfal Operation, a military crackdown on the Kurds in the late 1980s that killed some 180,000 people; the suppression of Kurdish and Shiite revolts in 1991; and the deaths of 5,000 Kurds in a 1988 poison gas attack on the village of Halabja.

If a death sentence is issued in the Dujail case, it is unclear whether it would be carried out regardless of whether Saddam is involved in other trials. He can appeal a Dujail verdict, but if a conviction and sentence are upheld, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days. A stay could be granted to allow other trials to proceed.

Associated Press reporters Mariam Fam, Omar Sinan, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Sameer N. Yacoub and Thomas Wagner contributed to this report.

10/19/2005 07:47:55