Iraq will open proceedings against Saddam's lieutenants

The announcement of the hearings came as a surprise.
WASHINGTON POST
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Judicial proceedings will begin next week against some of the most senior leaders under former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, Iraq's interim prime minister said Tuesday in a surprising announcement that put the past government's crimes before a country preparing for elections Jan. 30.
The proceedings are not expected to be the formal start of the trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but rather an investigative hearing for two of Saddam's 11 colleagues in U.S. custody. Saddam, captured a year ago this week and held at a base near Baghdad's airport, is not expected to be among those brought before the hearing.
The date was a surprise, coming just six weeks before the nationwide vote. Iraqi officials say the actual trials will not get under way until 2005, although next week's hearing is sure to rekindle grim memories of Saddam's 35-year rule.
"I can now tell you clearly and specifically that next week, God willing, the trials of the symbols of the former regime will start, one by one so that justice can take its course in Iraq," Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told Iraq's interim National Council.
Allawi did not specify who would face the hearing, but the deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, said last month that among the first to appear would be Watban Ibrahim Hassan, Saddam's half brother, and Ali Hassan Majeed, one of Saddam's closest confidants, who earned the nickname "Chemical Ali" for overseeing chemical weapons attacks that killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s.
Security concerns
Given Saddam's long record of brutality, the trial would prove a daunting task in the best of circumstances. It will likely prove even more difficult amid the country's precarious attempt to create an elected government. Rule of law is tenuous in Iraq, lawyers for the defendants have complained that the government has denied them access to their clients, and security has proven so fragile that the identities of the judges are being kept secret.
Underlining the country's insecurity, a car bomb was detonated for the second time in two days near an entrance to the Green Zone, the sprawling, fortified compound along the Tigris River that houses the U.S. Embassy and offices of the Iraqi government. U.S. military officials said two Iraqis were killed. Doctors at Yarmouk Hospital identified one of the dead as Kassim Mohammed Lazim, a member of the Iraqi National Guard. Seven people were wounded, they said. There were no U.S. casualties.
It was the second day that residents woke up to a mushroom-shaped cloud over the neighborhood of Harthiya. The blast echoed across the river at 8 a.m., the time most children are headed to school, spraying the wreckage of the suicide bomber's car and three other vehicles along the street, still bearing the marks of Monday's blast. The explosion tore concrete out of a 12-foot blast wall and hurled wreckage into trees.
The car bomb Monday exploded about the same time, killing at least 11 Iraqis.
"Why do they do it in the morning?" asked Kaiser Abdel-Qadir, a 38-year-old resident. "Don't they have any concern for children going to school at this time?"
'What good does it do them?'
At Yarmouk Hospital, one of the wounded, Mustafa Hamad, lay in a bed with wounds to his head, chest and abdomen. His face pale, the National Guard member drifted in and out of consciousness. Next to him was his mother, who wept silently.
"He has been in the service only for a short time. Why him?" she asked, her voice soft, as another son stood nearby. "What good does it do them?"
Insurgents have deployed car bombs almost casually in Baghdad, adding another danger in a capital roiled with fears of crime and exhausted by persistent blackouts and gas shortages that have left cars waiting in lines stretching miles beyond filling stations. The violence itself has worked its way into the city's fabric. On the People's Radio, a private station, the announcer opened his 10 a.m. broadcast with these words: "Good morning. Good morning, everybody. I wish you a pleasant life without car bombs."
Along with those bombs, the insurgents have staged hit-and-run attacks, executions and ambushes, often targeting the country's fledgling security forces, seen as a linchpin in U.S. efforts to eventually withdraw troops that will soon number 150,000.
Poland announced Tuesday that it will cut its troop strength in Iraq by nearly a third in February as part of long-standing plans to reduce its presence. The 2,400-member contingent will be cut to 1,700, with 700 soldiers remaining on standby in Poland, Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said in Warsaw.
Bodies in Mosul
In the northern city of Mosul, where attempts to intimidate security forces have proved especially ferocious, U.S. troops discovered eight more bodies this week, the military said. That brought the number found in the city, Iraq's third largest, to more than 150 since Nov. 10, although it was not certain all were members of security forces.
Fighting has persisted as well in Baghdad and a corridor running west along the Euphrates River through Fallujah and Ramadi, where 10 Marines have been killed in the past three days. In a visit Tuesday, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that fighting was continuing in Fallujah, which U.S. forces had declared under their control after an assault last month.
"There is still some work to be done by Iraqi security forces and by coalition forces," Myers told reporters at Camp Liberty in Baghdad. "There are still pockets of people that are resisting, insurgents that are resisting, and they'll have to be dealt with."
Many of Fallujah's 250,000 residents fled ahead of the fighting, which destroyed much of the city. Myers said he hoped some would begin returning in "the next few days."
Secrecy
The start of the judicial proceedings against Saddam's lieutenants has been a subject of speculation for months. In September, Allawi called for the tribunal to speed up its proceedings against Saddam and his aides and begin the trials before the January vote. Others in the government have said the trials would not begin until 2006.
Some of Saddam's top lieutenants have been held for more than a year at a facility near the Baghdad airport, and on Monday, the U.S. military acknowledged that eight of them had refused food over the weekend to demand visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross, although they were eating again by Monday.
In July, they appeared before the Iraqi Special Tribunal to face preliminary charges against the former regime, among them war crimes and crimes against humanity. In his statement Tuesday, Allawi said another mass grave had been discovered near the city of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. He said it held at least 500 bodies.
Some officials have complained that the tribunal is not prepared to begin the trials, a charge seconded by a leading human rights organization. A U.S. official has said that one detainee had met a lawyer Sunday, but defense attorneys have complained that they have yet to have the access they need to plan a comprehensive defense.
"The whole process has been shrouded in secrecy," said Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group based in New York. "Understandably, there are real security concerns, but that need for security doesn't preclude issuing information on whether indictments have been issued and whether lawyers have had access to the accused."
Dicker said he worried that the proceedings could become a "political show trial."