Iraqis Fear They Can't Put Saddam on Trial

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi officials expressed fears Saturday that a Pentagon decision to declare Saddam Hussein a prisoner of war will prevent them from putting the ousted dictator on trial. The international Red Cross, however, said POW status does not preclude a war crimes prosecution.

U.S. officials in Baghdad sought to assure Iraqis that no deal was made to keep them from trying the ousted dictator for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Iraq will have a "substantial leadership role" when the former Saddam faces justice, said Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led occupation authority.

"There is no need for concern by anybody because the ultimate designation (of Saddam's status) will be determined down the road," Senor told a news conference Saturday.

On Friday, a Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Michael Shavers, said the Defense Department's top civilian lawyers have determined that Saddam - held in U.S. custody and under CIA interrogation since his capture last month - is a prisoner of war because of his status as former commander in chief of Iraq's military.

POW status under the Geneva Conventions grants Saddam certain rights, including access to visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross and freedom from coercion of any kind during interrogations.

In Geneva, Ian Piper, a spokesman for the international Red Cross, said handing Saddam over to the Iraqis for trial would not conflict with the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare, as long as he is granted due process.

It is up to the United States, as Iraq's occupier, to determine how Saddam is to be tried, Piper told The Associated Press.

"The status means that he's recognized as a formal combatant and therefore cannot be accused for having waged war," Piper said. But Piper he added that Saddam's prisoner of war status "does not give him immunity from accusations of crimes against humanity."

Piper said that national courts have the power to try people who break international war crimes conventions. "It's supposed to be part of national law, and one would expect the national law to apply at the end of the conflict."

The Geneva Conventions say that a POW can only be tried by the same courts as a member of the detaining country's military would be tried - a military court, or a civilian court as the law allows. The conventions make no specific mention of war crimes or crime against humanity.

Saddam's capture brought a sense of relief to many Iraqis who suffered under his 23 years of iron-fisted rule. No Red Cross representatives have yet seen Saddam, whom the United Stats says is held in a safe location. Iraqi officials say he is being held in the Baghdad area.

The United States has said it plans to hand Saddam over to the Iraqis for trial. But that is not expected to happen before sovereignty is handed back to an Iraqi government by July 1, the date designated for the formal end of the U.S.-led occupation.

Saddam's POW designation raised concerns among many Iraqis that it would keep him out of an Iraqi court - and made some suspicious that the Americans want it that way.

"I am surprised by this decision," said Dara Nor al-Din, a former appeals court judge and member of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council. "We still consider Saddam a criminal, and he will be tried on this basis. This new move will be discussed thoroughly in the Governing Council."

Another council member, Mahmoud Othman, said the United States had no right to make such a decision. "The Iraqi people want Saddam to be tried for his crimes in accordance with the Iraqi law. Iraqis want to know the parties which helped Saddam to commit those crimes and to possess weapons of mass destruction," he said.

Iraq's justice minister, Hashim Abdul-Rahman, called the Pentagon comments "mere views" and insisted that Iraqis themselves would determine Saddam's fate.

"The only thing I do know is that Iraqi bodies will decide Saddam's status," Abdul-Rahman said. "We will determine his legal statues when the Iraqi authorities take over this issue."

"It is a confirmation of what the United States government has said all along and that Saddam Hussein will be treated under the Geneva Conventions until determined otherwise," he said.

On the streets of the Iraqi capital Saturday, some Iraqis speculated that the Americans were trying to deny Iraq the chance to try Saddam for fear he would expose secret contacts between Washington and Baghdad, especially during Iraq's 1980-88 war against Iran. The West provided Baghdad with arms to prevent an Iranian victory that would have threatened Middle East interests.

Ibrahim al-Basri, a physician, said he believed POW status was part of "a bargain between Saddam and the United States."

"He handed them Iraq," al-Basri said. "If the Americans wanted to clone an agent to serve them, they wouldn't find a better one than Saddam. He brought the Americans to the Gulf, divided the Arabs, destroyed Iraq and its weapons, threatened Syria and Iran."

Allowing the Iraqi govening council or its successor organization to formally charge Saddam Hussein with war crimes, malfeasance of office, and civil murder and torture in the name of the Iraqi government would go far to establish the legitimacy of the new Iraqi government, as well as empower the Iraqi nation in management of its own affairs. There is little chance that the Iraqi government would turn Saddam loose, or impose only a token sentence. If they do, there is not another court in the world that would have the moral authority to try him, not even the UN.

Especially not the UN.

Did you ever dance with the Devil by the pale moonlight?

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I find all this hand wringing about Saddam's fate to be ridiculous. The Iraqis will try him, then they will execute him. End of story.

Exactly....

What in Iraqi law prevents them from killing pows ? Either in the old government or the new one....... Nothing.

This is just handwringing on the left. "Saddam killed hundreds of thousands but because this pow box was checked on his incarceration form we cannot take that into account." ha. Perhaps we should refer him to a psychological program like the one that rehabbed Hinckley........

Never fear GW's here and Saddam's gonna go back in a hole soon.

Never fear GW's here and Saddam's gonna go back in a hole soon.

Too bad he didn't meet the same fate as his two monster sons. Then we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

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