Saddam could go to trial as early as October

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Ex-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), charged with crimes against humanity, could go to trial before the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) as early as next month, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says in an interview to be aired on Sunday.

"Roughly, I think October," Allawi said in the ABC interview, a transcript of which was given to AFP.

He went on to say that Saddam supporters similarly charged would also be on trial when the IST convenes.

"Maybe he will appear in November or December, but definitely in October the whole issue will start," he said.

"I don't think it will take a long time, because the evidence against him is ... overwhelming. So we hope justice will be served."

Asked if he meant the death penalty, Allawi said only, "The death penalty has been restored in Iraq (news - web sites)."

Allawi said the insurgency in Iraq "is still raging," but "it's not getting stronger. We are squeezing out the insurgency...This is a problem on its way to being solved.

"I'm not saying Iraq is peaceful. The insurgency, supported by foreign elements and by terrorist elements, is still a big headache."

The prime minister said there was no need for more US troops in Iraq, but rather a need for "more participation by other countries.

"Iraq is fighting this war on behalf of the civilized nations," he said. "It's not something unique to Iraq. If this is not happening in Iraq, New York will be hit, Washington will be hit, London will be hit, Paris will be hit.

"That's why countries in the world should understand this and should help in this fight," said Allawi. "This is a global war."

He faulted an intelligence analysis by the US Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) (CIA (news - web sites)) earlier this month that said the situation in Iraq was tenuous at best and laying out the possibility of a civil war.

"There is no civil war in Iraq," he said. "The Shiites are not against the Sunnis. The Sunnis not against the Shiites, the Kurds not against the Arabs. There are insurgents who belong to Saddam...who are killers and murderers of the Iraqi people, and there are foreign fighters, the terrorists."

Allawi is scheduled to meet with President George W. Bush (news - web sites) at the White House on Thursday as Bush, seeking a second term in the November 2 election, tries to convince US voters that Iraq is steadily improving.

Bush enthused about his meeting with Allawi this week, calling him "a tough guy who believes that Iraq should be free and he cares about the hopes and aspirations of the Iraqi people.

From FoxNews

Iraqi PM: Vote to Be 'Major Blow' to Militants

Sunday, September 19, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi (search) insisted elections will go ahead as scheduled in January despite a surge in violence, promising Sunday that the vote would be a "major blow" to the insurgency, as U.S. warplanes and artillery pounded the guerrilla stronghold of Fallujah.

A wave of bombings, kidnappings and street fighting has claimed some 300 lives in the past week, part of a 17-month anti-U.S. insurgency that has persisted since Allawi's interim government took power in June. The strikes in Fallujah (search) killed four people.

Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) warned there could not be "credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now."

But Allawi, who spoke with reporters after a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) in London, said his interim government was determined "to stick to the timetable of the elections," which are due by Jan. 31.

"January next I think is going to be a major blow to terrorists and insurgents. Once we go through the democratic process, once we achieve and progress toward democracy, the terrorists will be defeated," said Allawi, who is heading to the United Nations for this week's General Assembly session.

"We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail, is going to win in Iraq," he said.

In an interview with ABC's "This Week," Allawi also said that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants would go on trial soon. "Roughly speaking, I think October," Allawi said in the interview airing Sunday.

He said he did not think the trial would take long because the evidence against Saddam was "overwhelming."

He also noted that the death penalty — which was suspended during the U.S. administration of Iraq — has been restored, but did not say whether he expected the ousted dictator to be executed if convicted.

Since his capture last December, Saddam has been held in U.S. detention at an undisclosed location awaiting trial on broad charges of killing rivals, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait and suppressing uprisings. Eleven of Saddam's top lieutenants also face trial.

Allawi also called for a greater U.N. role in "in helping the economy, the political process, moving ahead."

"Unfortunately only recently we had received the envoy of the secretary-general of the United Nations. We would like to see a greater involvement by the United Nations and the agencies of the United Nations," he told reporters in London.

Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes unleashed missiles on a main street in the center of Fallujah late Saturday, killing two people and wounding four, said Dr. Rafea Heyad of the Fallujah General Hospital.

The U.S. military said the strikes hit a checkpoint manned by insurgents linked to alleged Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search).

Early Sunday, an artillery barrage on an industrial area in Fallujah killed two people and injured two others, said Dr. Ahmed Khalil, also of Fallujah General Hospital.

The attacks were the latest in a series of strikes in and around Fallujah since late Thursday, often targeting what the military says are hideouts for members of al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad militant group.

Insurgents have strengthened their grip on Fallujah since American troops pulled back from a three-week siege of the city in April that left hundreds dead. U.S. troops have not entered the city since, relying on airstrikes instead.

The Tawhid and Jihad group threatened in a videotape that surfaced Saturday to behead two Americans and a Briton within two days unless Iraqi women are released from the American controlled Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons.

Abu Ghraib is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed sexually humiliating male prisoners, and fears about the safety of women inmates have multiplied since then.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said coalition forces do not hold any women at these facilities but that two female "security detainees" are held by the Americans elsewhere.

The tape was the first word on the fate of Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley since the three construction contractors were kidnapped from their Baghdad home on Thursday.

The videotape was broadcast by Al-Jazeera shortly before it revealed a fresh kidnapping claim.

A previously unknown group calling itself the "Salafist Brigades of Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq" claimed it was holding 10 hostages working for an American-Turkish company and threatened to kill them in three days if their firm didn't leave Iraq. The group said the company had to leave Iraq within three days or the hostages would be killed.

Neither the hostages' nationalities nor the name of their company were given. The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately verified.

On Sunday, Lebanon's Foreign Ministry said three Lebanese men and their Iraqi driver were abducted by gunmen on the Baghdad-Fallujah highway Friday night.

The four — identified as Lebanese Fadi Munir Yassin, Cherbal Karam Haj and Aram Nalbandian and Iraqi Ahmed Mirza — worked for a travel agency that has a branch in Baghdad, a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity. The motive for the kidnapping was not immediately clear.

More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, some for lucrative ransoms, and many have been executed. At least five other Westerners are currently being held hostage here, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters.

Meanwhile, a new round of talks to cease hostilities in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City ended in deadlock, with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia refusing American demands to disband and turn in its weapons, the U.S. military and al-Sadr aides said Sunday.

A group of tribal leaders and al-Sadr representatives met Saturday with a Baghdad city councilman acting as an intermediary between the two sides to discuss a 12-point proposal that calls for fighters to disarm in exchange for millions of dollars in reconstruction money and compensation for victims.

The plan would also have Iraqi forces take over much of the security in the east Baghdad slum and limit the movement of U.S. troops. American commanders did not take part in the talks, the military said.

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