Iraqi Press on Saddam's Day in Court

On June 28, 2004, the occupation of Iraq was officially terminated and the Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) as the civil administration of Iraq has ceased to exist. Two days following the termination of occupation, the legal responsibility for Iraq's former dictator, Saddam Hussein, was transferred to the Iraqis. With the termination of the occupation Saddam Hussein ceased to be a prisoner of war and he would henceforth be tried before an Iraqi court, according to Iraqi laws.

Amidst strict security, Saddam Hussein, shackled in both hands and legs, was brought before an Iraqi judge for arraignment on July 1. The event took place in the resort of Radhwaniyah, where Saddam had built one of his most luxurious palaces. The resort was stocked with animals to allow Saddam and his immediate entourage to exercise their favored sport - hunting.

The arraignment was scheduled to last a few minutes; it lasted more than 40 minutes. Enjoying the limelight of television, as he always has, Saddam was arrogant and defiant. He insisted on being treated as the legitimate president of Iraq while questioning the legitimacy of the procedures, called his trial "a Bush theater," and referred to the Kuwaitis as "dogs." Regarding the chemical bombing of the Kurdish village of Halabja, he said he had heard about it on the radio.

Responding to arguments by Arab lawyers that Saddam cannot be tried by a non-elected government, the Iraqi columnist Khaled Al-Kishtainy wrote: "The fact is that all these Arab lawyers and all those intellectuals and writers who continue to defend Saddam Hussein and provide the explanations for his conduct and the glorification of his persona, have began to plant in my heart the seeds of racism and make me believe that there is a real flaw in our genes that blinds us from using our brain and logic and give regard to human values and the interests of our nations and their future." ^[1]

The following are the complete and correct excerpts of Iraqi press reactions to the trial of Saddam Hussein:

The Trial of Saddam is Not Productive

The independent daily Al-Mashriq brings the views of the Shi'a clerics regarding the trial of Saddam Hussein. The bottom line: the trial is not productive and Saddam should be hanged, and fast. The young Shi'a cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, whose father, two brothers, and uncle were murdered by Saddam Hussein, led the demand for a quick execution of Saddam. A spokesman for Al-Sadr, Aus al-Khaffaji said in his Friday sermon: "Saddam does not need a trial. The ones who should be brought to trial are those who urged Saddam to commit these crimes, with the American administration of evil coming at the top."

Threats were also directed against Saddam's lawyers. Sheikh Ra'id al-Kadhemi, in his Friday sermon in one of Baghdad’s largest Shi'ite mosque, Moussa Al-Khadhem,said: "I advise the monkeys, the sons of monkeys, the mercenary lawyers who wish to defend Saddam, not to come to Iraq because the Iraqis will watch them with an eagle's eye." He also addressed Saddam's supporters: "I say to the supporters of Saddam and to anyone who tries to exonerate him that you will not escape punishment. We have sworn by Allah that Saddam will not escape punishment." [2]

Saddam vs. the Judge

The same daily wrote another article titled 'The Judge and the Accused in Saddam's Trial.' It said: "From the technical and propaganda aspects the arraignment of Saddam was not successful because it provided negative yields to those who sought to belittle Saddam, disgrace him, and make him appear as a confused indicted person who could only visualize the hanging rope around his neck… the trial served Saddam more than it hurt him. It showed him strong while the court wished him to appear weak and repenting. The judge was the weak link in the court because neither his personality, nor his legal training, nor his experience would qualify him to question someone like Saddam who was molded by politics, polished by experience, and his bloodthirsty nature made him firm in the worst of circumstances and arrogant in the most critical situations." [3]

Similarly, in an editorial titled 'The Accused and the Absent Witnesses,' the independent daily Al-Mada wrote: "Saddam Hussein with his flesh and blood but without his authority… The man issued collective verdicts with a motion of his finger without hearing the accused or the witnesses and threatened to cut up his victims into four pieces. This man who has never known in his life any law but the law of terror is present at the defendant cage. Who is to believe it?"

Regarding who the witnesses should be, the paper writes: "… No one is more deserving to appear at this surprising moment that the half million dead in the war with Iran which ended at point zero. Six thousand in Halabja who suffocated by apple-smelling gas, 182 thousand in the Anfal operation [forceful removal and often killing of Kurds] who have no longer any existence, not even in graves, and mass graves for tens of thousands of people across the country after the uprising of 1991. All these cannot testify for the simple reason that they do not exist.

"We wonder what the lawyers will say:

"The war? Started by Khomeini, and Saddam was defending the eastern gate.

"Halabja? It was bombed by Iran.

"And the war in Kuwait? It started as a result of provocations by Kuwait.

"The Anfal? There is no witness.

"The graveyards in the south and middle [or Iraq]? They rebelled and they deserved the punishment.

"What a shame for the Arab legal system and Arab justice that so many lawyers volunteer to defense a despot but none of them moved a finger to defend the tens of thousands of his victims." [4]

Iraqi Lawyers Alone May Defend Saddam

The Iraqi daily Baghdad (associated with Prime Minister Allawi's National Accord Party, or Al-Wifaq Al-Watani) reported thatthe Jordanian head of Saddam Hussein's defense team, Muhammad Al-Rashdan "received a phone call from Salem Al-Chalabi,the president of the special Iraqi court which is trying Saddam, in an effort to 'facilitate the team's task' to defend its client…" According to Al-Rashdan, Al-Chalabi informed him that "according to Iraqi law only an Iraqi lawyer can plead a case [in front of an Iraqi court], but he added that he did not agree with Al-Chalabi in this matter. He also said that Al-Chalabi suggested that the defense team appoints an Iraqi lawyer, or to allow the Iraqi court to appoint one… Al-Rashdan said that the defense team has already started its contacts to select an Iraqi lawyer who will accompany it in Iraq…" [5]

The same newspaper published an op-ed by Dr. Rif'at Sayid Ahmad about the televised court proceedings, in which he bemoaned the fact that some of the Iraqis who viewed the proceeding "empathized with this despot when he answered the questions of a much younger judge… Is it the psychological masochism of the victims…? Is it the hatred of the occupation and its aftermath and results, of which – in their opinion- this trial is one? Is it the true love of whatever is 'Arab' even if it is more deadly and immoral than any invading foreigner?... And although I do not dismiss those questions, I am left facing [the explanation that] ignorance of what this tyrant has committed is the reason for the empathy which existed among viewers, and which will diminish gradually when the trial exposes the crimes and scandals [that Saddam committed]…" [6]

The independent daily Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed maintained in its editorial that "the Iraqis will not be able to accomplish the historical task of trying their former dictator without the assistance of international and humanitarian expertise that was obtained in trials against Nazism and Fascism and their heirs, such as the crushed dictator Slobodan Milosevic, the executioner of the Balkans and the Yugoslav nations…" The paper points out that there are several outstanding Arab justices "such as Muhammad Badawi the former head of the International Tribunal [in The Hague] and the author of the Algerian constitution, and justice Fouad Riyadh, an Egyptian who isa genius in international law and one of the founders of the international tribunal for war crimes in Yugoslavia…" The paper goes on to say: "We also need tremendous self-confidence to overcome the early obstacles that precede the actual trial of the worst criminal in international history… In this besieged and compromised Arab and Islamic world, the conspirators and robbers of fortunes and sovereignties are still reeking havoc, they are not ashamed of their crimes and unafraid of facing their Creator. [Therefore] we need a smart judiciary that will not only try the executioners, but will put their direct and indirect partners in the defendants' cage, because they contribute to the nation's defeatism and to the denigration of the people who are the [true] owners of [their] sovereignty and fortunes…" [7]

Al-Sabahdaily, published by the Iraqi Information Network, said in its editorial that "the trial of the deposed tyrant represents enormous political, informational and judicial changes in Iraq… One of those changes has been our need for a 'former ruler,' because all the Iraqi rulers during hundreds of years, with just a few exceptions, remained in power for life … and did not leave their positions except in death, or if killed at the hands of revolutionaries… I wish we had many more 'exceptions,' and many more 'former presidents' who would rejoin the ranks of the citizenry at the end of their stewardship, to be followed by others – not through a military coup, but by free, honest, and periodical elections…" [8]

Is Saddam Innocent?

The independent daily Al-Shira' asked the question of Saddam's innocence in an op-ed by Qahtan Al-Shimri,who pointed out that Arab cable television stations and Arab judiciaries consider Saddam blameless and maintain that he should not have been arrested and tried. The article goes on to list Saddam's crimes against Iraq and the Iraqi people and says that he squandered Iraqi territories in his war with Iran, and gave them away to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Jordan, and that he caused the death of three million Iraqi civilians and military men. Add to that, says the paper, the executions and the use of chemical weapons which made him worse than any "Pharaoh" [i.e. tyrant] in history. The writer launches a ruthless criticism against the team of Jordanian lawyers and other Arabs "who, with their logic, condemn the innocent and glamorize the criminal. And since the new government is not legitimate [in their opinion], because it was not elected, they encourage the criminals and the thieves to take advantage of this golden opportunity to keep on slaughtering, killing, and robbing with impunity…" [9]

In another op-ed, the same daily refers to Saddam's defense team as "mercenaries who sold their conscience and betrayed the honor of their profession… these mercenaries know exactly the enormity of their client's crimes, but they disregard justice, honor and morality…" The author of the article, 'Adel Al-Samawi, also attacks the Jordanian and other Arab lawyers who are members of the defense team and says that "they do not realize that Arab nationalism means the people, and not a criminal sovereign who ended in the landfills of history…" The writer goes on to say that the "Mafia of Tikrit" has been actively trying to mobilize Muslims in Western countries, who have no knowledge of the Iraqi people, and to spread their venom and convince them that the Iraqi people are "shedding tears over the departure of their commander…" At the end of his article, the writer advocates prohibiting "those mercenaries from ever coming to Iraq." [10]