Saddam Defense Likely to Be Mix of Tactics
By JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press Writer
AMMAN, Jordan - Even fallen dictators deserve a fair trial, some of Saddam Hussein's lawyers argue. Others on the legal team say they're rallying to the cause of a symbol of Arab pride toppled by an imperial power.
That combination means the defense strategy during a trial expected to start next year is likely to be a mix of tactics, from trying to prove Saddam is not as vicious as many believe, to challenging the legitimacy of a court chosen while Iraq was under U.S. occupation.
"If we put a sufficient amount of traps in the functioning of this court, the Americans and the new Iraqi authorities might perhaps backstep," said French attorney Emmanuel Ludot, one of 21 lawyers who say they have been appointed by Saddam's wife Sajida.
Ludot said one goal is to have the U.N. propose other judges — and if that doesn't work challenge the current court at every step.
"Our job will be to work so that this tribunal doesn't function, that it be paralyzed as long as possible," Ludot told The Associated Press in Paris.
First, though, the team must persuade the Americans and the Iraqis they are Saddam's lawyers.
None are Iraqi, and Iraqi officials say an Iraqi must at least lead the team. U.S. authorities have refused to let the legal team or other lawyers see the Iraqi dictator, who was arrested in December — yanked from an underground hideaway by American forces — and is being held in a U.S.-controlled jail until Iraqis are ready to take physical custody of him.
No lawyer was at Saddam's side when he was arraigned July 1 in Baghdad on broad charges that included killing rival politicians over 30 years; gassing Kurds in Halabja in 1988; invading Kuwait in 1990; and suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991.
Until defense lawyers are allowed to meet Saddam, a long-term strategy is unlikely to emerge, said Curtis Doebbler, the only American on a team that includes law professor Aicha Moammar Gadhafi, daughter of the Libyan leader, and lawyers from Belgium, Britain, France, Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia.
Doebbler, an expert on international law, told reporters in Washington earlier this month his clients over the past decade have included Ethiopian refugees and political activists in Sudan.
"Whether it's a former president or whether it's a refugee, individuals have the same basic human rights," Doebbler said. "Even the people we dislike the most have a right to a fair trial."
Doebbler said he has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the detention of the deposed Iraqi leader unconstitutional.
"Even the basic rights of due process, the basic rights of fair trial are being stomped on," Doebbler told AP in an e-mail exchange.
Issam Ghazawi, a Jordanian on the defense team, said he was defending Saddam because "in my conviction and personal view, he's innocent and all the allegations against him are false."
He also said that Saddam represents "Arab pride and dignity, and defending him is the least I can do."
The team leader, Jordanian Mohammed Rashdan, is a Saddam admirer who fought alongside Iraqis in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Rashdan said he was collecting documents he said challenged accusations Saddam was responsible for the 1988 attack with chemical weapons on the Kurdish town of Halabja that killed at least 5,000 people.
"Tests on the chemicals used showed that it was material that the Iraqi army never possessed," he said, hinting that Iran carried out the attack. That echoed comments Saddam's regime had made about Halabja, but few others hold anyone but Saddam responsible.
"When we are in the trial, you will see the documents," Rashdan said.
Frenchman Ludot has said lawyers will look for ways to undermine the judges as part of their strategy. Rashdan has tried to link the head of the special Iraqi tribunal, Salem Chalabi, with Israel, saying he is a law partner of Mark Zell, a Washington lawyer and now a West Bank settler. Such a connection would anger many Arabs.
"Mr. Salem Chalabi can never be neutral, he can never be fair," Rashdan said. "Mr. Chalabi is a law partner with a Zionist."
There was no immediate comment from Chalabi. Zell, reached in Jerusalem, refused comment.
Another Jordanian lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said the team would attack the legitimacy of both judges "installed by the American occupation" and of the U.S.-led war that put Saddam in jail.
"It was an American-British aggression because the only justification, to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, was nonexistent, a big lie, since no such weapons were found in Iraq," al-Khasawneh said. "Therefore, Mr. President Saddam Hussein is Iraq's legitimate leader and his detention and trial are illegal."
Al-Khasawneh said the team was considering suing President Bush (news - web sites), British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) and other American and British officials for launching an "unjustified aggression which resulted in toppling Iraq's legitimate leadership and plunging the country into chaos."
___ EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press writer Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.
Heavy duty : A heavily armed Iraqi national guardsman stands guard at a checkpoint on the highway joining the flashpoint towns of Ramadi and Fallujah to Baghdad in Abu Ghraib. (AFP/Ahmad al-Rubbaye)
Fallujah Savors Quietest Spell in a Year
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Two months after U.S. Marines pulled out, residents of Fallujah feel safe again, sleeping on their roofs to escape the heat without fear of the once-constant nighttime gunbattles, and traveling the streets without worrying they could be stopped or detained.
Fallujah, they say, is savoring its most peaceful spell in more than a year. U.S. forces camped on the city's outskirts say they want to return to help out, but no one here is interested.
"If they come back, we'll fight them and die with honor," said Mohammed Hatem, 17, as he and a cousin prowled for pigeons to shoot with an air rifle they share.
His cousin, 15-year-old Youssef Joma'a, agreed: "We are improving our aim, so if the Americans return, we too can fight."
Fallujah's estimated 300,000 residents have a reputation for being tough, conservative and having little tolerance for outside authority, least of all foreign occupiers.
The U.S. military knows that. Since Saddam Hussein's fall last year, Fallujah remained defiant as U.S. military units came and went.
The military tried getting tough with one hand and being sensitive with the other.
U.S. soldiers waged nighttime security sweeps, storming private homes in search for weapons and fighters.
They also painted schools, installed power generators and water pumps, and distributed candy and toys to children.
Nothing worked, and Fallujah turned into a daily battleground of fighting between mujahedeen, or holy warriors, and U.S. troops. With time, it earned a reputation for being the most hostile city to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Things came to a head in Fallujah soon after the March 31 killings of four U.S. contractors whose bodies were mutilated — two were hung from a bridge by an Iraqi mob. The incident led to a three-week siege of the city by the Marines during which heavy fighting took place.
The city began to see peace again when U.S. Marines lifted the siege and handed over security to a new "Fallujah Brigade" made up of local residents and commanded by officers from Saddam's former army. Many of those who fought the Marines joined the brigade.
The mujahedeen, who led that fight, now wield vast influence in the city, aided by the perception that they gave Islam a rare victory over a superpower.
From an American perspective, the "Fallujah Brigade" experiment — billed at the time as "an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem" — has been a disaster. The U.S. military now says Fallujah is a den of terrorists and a refuge for foreign Muslim fighters waging global jihad against America.
"We'd like to have access to Fallujah to get many planned, high impact economic and quality of life projects underway," said Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson, a Marines spokesman in the Fallujah area. "The security conditions required for that type of work do not exist in the city."
Yet fears that once the Marines left, the local militants would impose a strict interpretation of Islam proved exaggerated. Also proven unfounded were expectations that the mujahedeen would target U.S.-appointed officials — like the mayor and police chief — and kill Iraqis thought to have cooperated with the Americans. Instead, residents say the city is doing just fine.
The streets are patrolled by police and Fallujah Brigade members. Fighters wearing ammunition belts and armed with assault rifles help direct traffic. Charities have sprung up to help families of those killed during the fighting.
For the first time in months, a Friday sermon in a Fallujah mosque made no mention of the Americans, concentrating instead on a religious message: death comes when least expected, so every Muslim must be ready by performing all his religious duties.
In an implicit barb at the unelected government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, Sheik Fawzi al-Obeidi ended his sermon at the Hamoud al-Mahmoud mosque with an unusual prayer "May God take away the Iraqis' lust for power and authority."
After the Americans left, "no one ordered me to grow a beard or tried to fight the growth of civil society in Fallujah," said Maki al-Nazzal of the city's Scientific and Cultural Forum, a non-governmental agency that promotes education and political and social awareness.
Speaking in a community center over the battle screams of children taking a kung fu class next door and the distant sound of an American jet flying over the city, al-Nazzal denied U.S. claims that Fallujah has become a center of terrorism.
Drawing on his experience during the fighting in April as a volunteer hospital manager, he said: "All I know is that our American liberators were sniping at civilians and the so-called terrorists were bringing them to the hospital to be treated and were donating blood."
Nazzal and others in Fallujah say they cannot rule out the presence of a small number of foreign Muslim fighters in the city, but are adamant that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian suspected of masterminding bombings in Iraq, was not here.
The U.S. military has launched repeated airstrikes on suspected al-Zarqawi safehouses here.
"If you're a Muslim who cares about the faith, you'll come and fight the foreign occupier of a Muslim land," said Ismail Khalil, a Sunni cleric. "It's all the land of Islam, be it Syria, Egypt or Iraq. But the people who defended Fallujah are the city's own sons."
However, residents have recently taken to warning visitors against "criminal" kidnappers.
Fresh graffiti belonging to a shadowy group, The Islamic Response — 1920 Revolution Brigades, which said it had kidnapped U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun in Fallujah and later freed him, could be seen Thursday at the city center. It was painted over on Friday.