Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media:AFP
Byline: Jay Deshmukh
Date: 9 Sept 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Sept 9, 2006 (AFP) - Six more Iraqi Kurds are to testify against
Saddam Hussein on Monday -- the day the United States mourns victims of 9/11
attacks -- when his genocide trial resumes after a three-week break.
The sight of Saddam back in the dock on the fifth anniversary of the attacks
will fuel the debate in America over the motivations of the US-led invasion,
which overthrew the former Iraqi leader and led to his arrest.
This row was revived on Friday when a US Senate report concluded that Saddam
had no links with al-Qaeda prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, as had
been repeatedly implied by President George W. Bush's administration.
For now, however, the former strongman is on trial for his alleged role in
ordering the 1987-1988 Anfal campaign against Iraq's Kurdish minority. He is
charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Six more former regime officials, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed
"Chemical Ali" because of his enthusiasm for the use of poison gas, are also
in the dock facing various charges relating to deaths of 182,000 Kurds.
The trial began on August 21, and over three fraught days of testimony
Kurdish villagers testified that their villages had been gassed, their
fields destroyed and their families exterminated in brutal death camps.
"We expect at least half-a-dozen new witnesses to testify against the
accused when the trial resumes," a US official close to the court said,
adding that the tribunal is expected to hold three sessions next week.
So far, six Kurds -- four women and two men -- have testified in open court,
accusing Saddam and other defendants of carrying out chemical attacks
against their families and villages in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
In a previous trial, in which Saddam was charged with the mass murder of 148
Shiites in the village of Dujail, witnesses were concealed behind screens,
fearing reprisals from Sunni insurgents loyal to the former leader.
While the Dujail trial was a noisy piece of judicial theatre -- with Saddam
and his acolytes blustering angrily in the dock and staging walk-outs and
hunger strikes -- the Anfal case has seen the accused looking more subdued.
The witnesses, however, have not held back their fury.
"May God blind them all," cried 45-year-old Adiba Owla Bayez, one of the
witnesses accusing Saddam and the six co-defendants.
Bayez told the court how she and her family were temporarily blinded by gas
during an air raid by Iraqi jets on her village Belisand on April 16, 1987.
"I was screaming because I did not want to lose my children. I could not see
them and they were also blind. So I was screaming. It was a judgment day,"
she told the court.
Saddam largely remained quiet due the first three days of the trial, except
when a prosecutor accused his forces of raping Kurdish women.
Threatening prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, Saddam thundered: "If he says that
a Iraqi woman was raped in my era and if he does not prove it, I will hunt
him for the rest of my life."
The US government was reluctant to criticise Saddam during Anfal, prefering
the Iraqi dictator to his clerical foes in neighbouring Iran.
Washington's tone hardened after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the
United States, and he was accused of links to al-Qaeda hijackers. For many
Americans, this strengthened the case for the 2003 invasion.
On Friday, however, a US Senate report confirmed that there was never any
reliable intelligence data to link Saddam with the al-Qaeda network.
"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of Al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as
a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al-Qaeda to provide
material or operational support," said the report.
The Senate Intelligence Select Committee also dismissed administration
claims that Saddam had links with Al-Qaeda's then leader in Iraq, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US raid on June 7.
Byline: Jay Deshmukh
Date: 9 Sept 2006
Body:
BAGHDAD, Sept 9, 2006 (AFP) - Six more Iraqi Kurds are to testify against
Saddam Hussein on Monday -- the day the United States mourns victims of 9/11
attacks -- when his genocide trial resumes after a three-week break.
The sight of Saddam back in the dock on the fifth anniversary of the attacks
will fuel the debate in America over the motivations of the US-led invasion,
which overthrew the former Iraqi leader and led to his arrest.
This row was revived on Friday when a US Senate report concluded that Saddam
had no links with al-Qaeda prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, as had
been repeatedly implied by President George W. Bush's administration.
For now, however, the former strongman is on trial for his alleged role in
ordering the 1987-1988 Anfal campaign against Iraq's Kurdish minority. He is
charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Six more former regime officials, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed
"Chemical Ali" because of his enthusiasm for the use of poison gas, are also
in the dock facing various charges relating to deaths of 182,000 Kurds.
The trial began on August 21, and over three fraught days of testimony
Kurdish villagers testified that their villages had been gassed, their
fields destroyed and their families exterminated in brutal death camps.
"We expect at least half-a-dozen new witnesses to testify against the
accused when the trial resumes," a US official close to the court said,
adding that the tribunal is expected to hold three sessions next week.
So far, six Kurds -- four women and two men -- have testified in open court,
accusing Saddam and other defendants of carrying out chemical attacks
against their families and villages in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
In a previous trial, in which Saddam was charged with the mass murder of 148
Shiites in the village of Dujail, witnesses were concealed behind screens,
fearing reprisals from Sunni insurgents loyal to the former leader.
While the Dujail trial was a noisy piece of judicial theatre -- with Saddam
and his acolytes blustering angrily in the dock and staging walk-outs and
hunger strikes -- the Anfal case has seen the accused looking more subdued.
The witnesses, however, have not held back their fury.
"May God blind them all," cried 45-year-old Adiba Owla Bayez, one of the
witnesses accusing Saddam and the six co-defendants.
Bayez told the court how she and her family were temporarily blinded by gas
during an air raid by Iraqi jets on her village Belisand on April 16, 1987.
"I was screaming because I did not want to lose my children. I could not see
them and they were also blind. So I was screaming. It was a judgment day,"
she told the court.
Saddam largely remained quiet due the first three days of the trial, except
when a prosecutor accused his forces of raping Kurdish women.
Threatening prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, Saddam thundered: "If he says that
a Iraqi woman was raped in my era and if he does not prove it, I will hunt
him for the rest of my life."
The US government was reluctant to criticise Saddam during Anfal, prefering
the Iraqi dictator to his clerical foes in neighbouring Iran.
Washington's tone hardened after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the
United States, and he was accused of links to al-Qaeda hijackers. For many
Americans, this strengthened the case for the 2003 invasion.
On Friday, however, a US Senate report confirmed that there was never any
reliable intelligence data to link Saddam with the al-Qaeda network.
"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of Al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as
a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al-Qaeda to provide
material or operational support," said the report.
The Senate Intelligence Select Committee also dismissed administration
claims that Saddam had links with Al-Qaeda's then leader in Iraq, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US raid on June 7.