BAGHDAD, 5 June 2005 — Saddam Hussein’s morale has plummeted due to the gravity of the war crimes charges he faces, according to the judge trying him, while US and Iraqi forces arrested an Iraqi regarded as a top terror leader in northern Iraq.
Iraqi and US soldiers also kept up their pressure against suspected insurgents south of Baghdad, with more than 800 troops, mainly Iraqis, cordoning off districts in Latifiyah, a city in a region dubbed the Triangle of Death because of multiple attacks and killings that have taken place in the area.
The US military believes insurgents behind almost daily deadly attacks in Baghdad use districts on its southern edge as staging areas. “For two years I have been suffering from these terrorists, now it is my time,” Brig. Gen. Mohammed Essa Baher, an Iraqi army commander from the region whose two sons had been killed by insurgents, said on the eve of yesterday’s offensive.
Iraq’s Kurdish regional Parliament held its first session yesterday with the Iraqi president urging the Kurds to set an example of unity to the nation torn by sectarian strife. Iraq’s first Kurdish President Jalal Talabani addressed lawmakers in the northern city of Arbil in Arabic, urging Kurdish deputies to create a democratic and federal system.
“Your democratically elected Parliament faces a critical period in the history of Iraq,” Talabani said. “Our sacred task is to draft a permanent constitution that guarantees equality for all of Iraqi society,” he said, reiterating the need for “all components of Iraqi society” to help draw up the vital document, due to be put to referendum in October.
Eight people died Friday from insurgent attacks around the country, bringing to at least 830 the number killed since the Shiite-led government took office April 28 — an average of 23 deaths a day, not counting rebels, who are drawn from multiple groups, including extremists and Saddam loyalists.
A suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in western Baghdad’s Amil neighborhood yesterday, seriously wounding two policemen and setting two vehicles ablaze, Capt. Talib Thamir said.
In Baghdad’s western Ghazaliya neighborhood, two police officers were injured after gunmen opened fire on their patrol. In eastern Baghdad, police found the body of an unidentified dead man who had been bound and shot in the head.
The man leading the trial against Saddam, Raid Juhi, told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper in an interview that the ousted president and some of the 11 other detained former regime figures are facing “12 cases” carrying punishments from life in jail to the death penalty.
“The ousted president has suffered a collapse in his morale because he understands the extent of the charges against him and because he’s certain that he will stand trial before an impartial court,” Juhi was quoted as saying.
Saddam, who is being held in a US-run detention facility in Baghdad, was captured in December 2003 and faces charges including killing rival politicians during his 30-year rule, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait and suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991.
Juhi said Saddam will be tried alone in some case and alongside other detainees in other cases. Saddam’s lawyer, Khalil Al-Duleimi, rejected Juhi’s comments, telling The Associated Press that his client was in high spirits and that he was not aware of the 12 cases the judge referred to. “The last time I met Saddam was in late April and his spirits were very high,” Duleimi said.
The regional Parliament’s first session opened more than four months after general elections and following talks between Talabani and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, who was recently chosen as the autonomous region’s president. UN envoy Ashraf Qazi also addressed the Parliament, congratulating deputies for their success, but also urging them to show restraint.
The Kurdish people, he said, “suffered political isolation, economic deprivations and brutal repression including genocidal onslaughts during the era of the previous regime”. But now, he said, Kurdish leaders “have the opportunity, capability and dare I say obligation to provide a beacon of hope, to provide an example to the rest of Iraq.”
