[ppi] [ppiindia] Inside Saddam's Defense Strategy

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**http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1120567,00.html

 BOB STRONG / EPATAKING THE STAND: Hussein in court
Web Exclusive | World
Inside Saddam's Defense Strategy
By denying the legitimacy of the court, the former Iraqi dictator is playing to 
the gallery of Arab hostility to the U.S. 
By CHRISTOPHER ALLBRITTON/BAGHDAD 

SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
  a.. Speed Read: Saddam's Trial 
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005
Saddam Hussein lived up to the meaning of his first name ("one who confronts") 
on the first day of his trial by an Iraqi Special Tribunal, Wednesday: He 
denied the court's legitimacy, and challenged the presiding judge any time it 
was suggested that Saddam was no longer head of state in Iraq. Time and again, 
he got in the face of chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amein, a Kurd, over how he 
should be addressed, never hiding his contempt for the proceedings: "This court 
is false and whatever is built on a false basis is false," he said once, after 
being asked to identify himself. "I am the president of the Republic of Iraq." 
He took umbrage when the judge suggested he was, in fact, the "former" 
president of Iraq, interjecting that this was the judge's interpretation, not 
his own. Once the hearing was over, two guards moved to take his arms. He shook 
them off and engaged in a tense stare down with them before he finally exited 
the dock flanked by guards, but untouched. Once outside th
 e room, Saddam turned to the chief guard and said: "I am the President of 
Iraq. You can't grab me like that." 

And that, in a nutshell, seems to be the crux of his legal defense. 

Saddam has been indicted for the 1982 murder of 143 men from the small village 
of Dujail, following an assassination attempt on the dictator. Hundreds more 
were imprisoned and tortured. Saddam's defense, however, seems to rest on the 
fact that he was grabbed "like that," by U.S. soldiers back in December 2003, 
and was now before a court set up to carry out victor's justice. 

That theme was echoed by Saddam's lead defense attorney, Khalil Dulaimi. "This 
court is illegitimate and unconstitutional," said Dulaimi. "It is created on 
false foundations, and while those who are in charge of it are trying to 
improve its image, we still contest the legitimacy of this court." 

Interestingly, Saddam, whose official biography says he has a law degree from 
Cairo University, probably made a mistake by entering an "innocent" plea on 
Wednesday. By doing so, says Badie Izzat, defense counsel for former Iraqi 
deputy prime minster Tariq Aziz, Saddam tacitly accepted the court's 
legitimacy. If his strategy is to deny that legitimacy, better for Saddam to 
have said nothing. 

Dulaimi plans to argue that the court was set up under foreign military 
occupation, by the Coalition Provisional Authority, overriding the laws of Iraq 
in violation of the Geneva Conventions. He will also argue that as a head of 
state, former or not, and as such immune from prosecution. The defense will 
also contend that the men killed after the Dujail attack had all been found 
guilty under Iraqi law, and that Saddam's involvement was limited to signing 
their death warrants - something, Dulaimi notes, that President George W. Bush 
did for more than 150 people when he was governor of Texas. 

Another aspect of the defense strategy will be the "no-experience" argument: 
"This is the first time we've had a trial in Iraq for crimes against humanity," 
says Izzat. He and Dulaimi argue that they haven't received the training in 
international human rights law that the judges received in the U.S., Britain 
and Australia, so the proceedings cannot be fair. "We have no experience," says 
Izzat. 

It's unlikely that any of these three lines of defense will work. Saddam may 
hope to follow the courtroom strategy of fellow apprehended dictator Slobodan 
Milosevic, but Judge Amein may not allow such theatrics, filibustering and 
hectoring of witnesses in his courtroom. Indeed, the refusal to recognize the 
court may be less a legal strategy than a political one, playing to Arab 
resentment toward the U.S. invasion both inside and outside Iraq. Izzat says 
that when he visits Aziz, who is being held in the same facility as Saddam, the 
bombs and gunshots of the insurgency are easily heard. By further stoking 
resentment among Iraqi Sunnis' nationalist and in the wider Arab world, Saddam 
aims to rally support for the Sunni-led insurgency and make the American stay 
in Iraq even more painful. 

"Every human being has hopes, even in the last days of his life," says Izzat. 

As a legal strategy it may be limited, but as a propaganda swan-song it will 
allow him to paint himself in the great tradition of Arab heroes who went down 
fighting in the face of overwhelming force. But the court proceedings will 
likely also allow his victims to present their own narrative, which may 
undermine Saddam's bid for the mantle of Arab martyr. 


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