Ousted Iraqi Leader accused of Genocide and War by Paul McGeough Sydney Morning Herald 9:45am 30th Jun, 2004   July 2, 2004    The Arab world has never seen the likes of it - in a region accustomed to despots, a seemingly invincible dictator was dragged in cuffs and chains to a court of his own citizens in Iraq yesterday.    At a secret location in the capital, Saddam Hussein was paraded before an unidentified judge of the Iraq Special Tribunal to hear the outline of charges described by a government official as "homicide, genocide and war".    He arrived at the court, within a maximum-security complex, in an armoured military bus that was escorted by four US military Humvees. The last vehicle in the convoy was an ambulance.    Saddam was slimmer than the scraggly fugitive the world saw being dragged from a hole in the ground near the village of his birth, Tikrit, in December. He feigned composure as he was made to walk 20 metres to the entrance of the court before his restraints were removed.    He was clean-shaven - the fugitive's beard of December had been sculpted back to his customary moustache. And after retreating into sullen contempt for his interrogators while in custody, he told officials on Wednesday that he wanted answers to questions - but he was told then that he could ask them at yesterday's hearing. Despite his love of military uniform, he was wearing civilian dress when he arrived at court.    Saddam was to be charged in connection with using chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988; the Anfal campaign that began in the same year, in which thousands of Kurds were rounded up and massacred; the death in 1963 of 5000 members of the Barzani clan, to which the prominent Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani belongs; the invasion of Kuwait in 1990; aspects of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war; and the suppression of the Shiite uprising in southern Iraq after the 1990 Gulf War.    As the dust settled after two deadly roadside bombs in Baghdad during the morning, Saddam was in court as a common criminal - no longer a prisoner of war, he had been stripped of the protection of the Geneva conventions. But there was nothing common about the charge sheet.    Just to see Saddam in the dock was a stark new image for a man more accustomed to the service of a vast media and culture machine that shaped his persona as the only source of authority for a population of 25 million; a brutal security apparatus that dealt with any who argued the point; and a vast military that lashed out at his neighbours.    And it was a long way from the gilded palaces and the suited swagger of power, a time when he squandered Iraq's untold riches. But oddly it was a step up from the bedraggled fugitive who was subjected to a humiliating and video-recorded medical examination by the gloved hands of an American doctor after his arrest.    The reaction in Baghdad, where people often say what they think is expected of them, was mixed. Members of his alleged victims' families are angry and vehement; but behind the anonymity of a straw poll conducted by a local radio station, 45 per cent of callers wanted the former president dead now, but a remarkable 41 per cent urged his release.    The charges are a deadly serious confrontation with Iraq's brutal past, but the hearing in the first days of the new Iraqi interim government was a show trial of sorts - as the only formal business conducted since the handover, it was intended to show the people that Iraqis were again in charge and that they had legal, if not physical, control of Saddam.    Breathless television commentary made much of the courtroom sighting . In truth, seeing him twice in seven months is much more than his people were used to in the pre-invasion days - then he would disappear for years at a time; and when he did appear in public there was always an element of doubt that it really was him because he often had a people of Iraq - they tried to drop oil prices and they tried to make $10-prostitutes of Iraqi women. They were dogs!"    And he feigned ignorance of the 1988 gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, telling the court: "Yes, I read about that in the press - they said it happened in the time of Saddam Hussein."    The rest of the charges, based on more than 30 tonnes of documents held by US and Iraqi authorities, dealt with the suppression of the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings in 1991, the Anfal campaign that began in the same year, in which thousands of Kurds were rounded up and massacred; the death in 1963 of 5000 members of the Barzani clan; the systematic elimination of his domestic political and religious opponents; and the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.    At one stage Saddam leant back in his chair and denounced the proceedings as "theatre" - "Bush is the real criminal," he declared. And when the judge finished his reading, he asked: Have you finished?    Judge: Yes    Saddam: Halas! (Arabic for finished).    At that point he refused to sign a document acknowledging he understood the proceedings. The judge, maintaining the cool he displayed throughout Saddam's appearance - except when he rebuked him for his reference to the Kuwaitis as dogs - said he would note in court record that Saddam had been told his rights.    After Saddam's appearance the court dealt with 11 of the men who held his regime together for more than 25 years. They, too, arrived by a bus escorted by Humvees. The last vehicle in the convoy was an ambulance.    Already they are being dubbed "the dirty dozen". Alongside Saddam is the man Iraqis call Chemical Ali - Ali Hassan al-Majid - a cousin of the former president who is held responsible for the poison gas attacks in and around Halabja in March 1988.    Other members of the Saddam cabal are Taha Yassin Ramadan, who has a reputation for great cruelty, and the seemingly urbane Tariq Aziz, a deputy prime minister who was Iraq's chief diplomat in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War and other events.    In Baghdad, where people frequently say what they think is expected of them, the reaction to Saddam's court appearance was mixed. Behind the anonymity of a straw poll conducted by a local radio station, 45 per cent of callers wanted him dead now, but a remarkable 41 per cent urged Saddam's release.    The charges he faces are a deadly serious confrontation with Iraq's brutal past, but the hearing in the first days of the new Iraqi interim government was a show trial of sorts - as the only formal business conducted since the handover, it was intended to show the people that Iraqis were again in charge and that they had legal, if not physical, control of Saddam.    Like everything else in Iraq, the legal system has to be rebuilt and in the words of one legal commentator, the tribunal will be "making up the law as it goes". The tribunal's chief prosecutor, Salem Chalabi, warned: "Saddam is going to want to use the tribunal as a platform for his political views, but we're not going to let him. We're going to make him focus on the very specific charges against him."
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