Saddam to appear before Iraqi judges

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On its first full day of self-rule, Iraq’s newly minted government announced Tuesday that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein will face charges before an Iraqi court on Thursday, after the nation regains legal custody of its former president and 11 of his senior deputies.

Meanwhile, insurgents fired at least eight mortar rounds at a U.S. base on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport today, wounding six soldiers, two of them critically, and starting a fire that burned for well over an hour.

Guerillas hit the logistics base operated by the New Mexico National Guard in support of the 1st Calvary Division at about 8:15 a.m. local time, said Col. Michael Formica, the commander of the division’s 2nd Brigade. The base has been subject to almost daily mortar attacks, but this was the first time the attacks caused significant casualties and damage.

The attack came as Iraq’s new government inched closer to cracking down on the violence that threatens its future. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is preparing to establish a range of strict security measures, akin to martial law, if bloodshed does not abate, senior Iraqi officials said. One minister said the interim government is poised to reinstate the death penalty that was suspended by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

An Iraqi government crackdown restricting legal safeguards could pose an awkward early test of the Bush administration’s declaration that postwar Iraq would become a launching pad for regional democratization, and some U.S. lawmakers already have expressed concerns about what measures Iraqi leaders have in mind.

A day after the United States and its allies formally ended nearly 14 months of occupation, Iraqis awoke to banner headlines on newsstands and a cautious recognition that fears of a violent week had not yet materialized.

They also glimpsed rare cause for optimism. Breaking a grim pattern of executions, kidnappers on Tuesday released three Turkish contractors whom they had threatened to behead.

Iraq also received diplomatic credentials from the first U.S. ambassador to Iraq since 1990, when the United States severed relations with Saddam’s regime after the invasion of Kuwait. Ambassador John Negroponte will lead America’s largest embassy, doling out billions in aid and coordinating control of some 140,000 American troops.

At a news conference to announce the transfer of Saddam from U.S. custody, Iraqi journalists erupted in applause at the sight of American soldiers positioning Iraqi flags in front of a backdrop that for months was the stage for U.S. generals and political aides offering the American perspective on the Iraqi situation.

“A thousand congratulations to you, Mr. Prime Minister,” one journalist interrupted as Allawi began a statement.

Saddam will be under U.S. military guard until Iraqi security forces are capable of guaranteeing security, Allawi said. But with the transfer, Saddam’s legal status will change from prisoner of war to criminal detainee. Saddam will gain the right to legal counsel and the right to remain silent, potentially ending any chance for further interrogation by U.S. military officials, said a senior U.S. government legal adviser in Baghdad.

In the seven months since U.S. troops found him hiding in a “spider hole” in the north-central Iraqi village of Ad Dawr, Saddam has had no contact with outsiders except for International Committee of the Red Cross observers, who have checked on his well-being and delivered letters from him to his family members exiled in Jordan. The U.S. military has not disclosed his location.

After Saddam is served with the warrant today, his attorneys will be allowed to meet with him to chart his legal strategy.

In making the announcement, Allawi promised that Saddam will receive a “just trial, a fair trial.”

Among those whose legal status will be transferred along with Saddam are Ali Hassan Majid, also known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in chemical weapons attacks against the Kurds; Aziz Saleh al-Numan, the Baath Party’s Baghdad regional commander; and Tariq Aziz, former deputy prime minister.

Allawi gave no date for their court appearances but said trials for Saddam and the others are months away.

Allawi would not comment Tuesday on whether he would move to reinstate the death penalty in Iraq. He also brushed aside questions about whether his interim government would establish emergency laws, something he has hinted about in recent interviews.

“We will tell you about those procedures later – maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” Allawi said.

Since regaining national sovereignty Monday – two days earlier than scheduled, to avert rebel attacks – Iraq has been relatively free of violence. Still, three U.S. troops were killed Tuesday and two were wounded in a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad. In a separate incident, five Iraqis were wounded in a mortar attack directed at a U.S. base near the city of Balad.

If violence escalates, the government is considering a range of emergency measures including a strict curfew and a suspension of the requirement for arrest and search warrants, said Hussein Ali Kamal, Iraq’s deputy interior minister for intelligence.

Allawi is seeking a freer hand to crack down on the insurgency. With the return of sovereignty, Iraq reverted – on paper, at least – to the legal structure of a peacetime nation. But other than on paper, Iraq is no regular country these days, and an emergency law may preserve many of the relaxed legal restrictions that U.S. forces applied when they worked under the title of an occupying force in a hostile area.

In that sense, Iraq under emergency law could appear little different than U.S.-led military control, except that Iraqi forces would be in charge of defining its scope and severity instead of Americans and their allies.

Senior officials in Iraq’s security apparatus said Tuesday that they had put police, national guard and army forces on alert for potential orders to expand their operations.

Kamal said that if major violence erupts, he expects an emergency declaration that could permit police and other security forces under the Interior Ministry to skip the process of obtaining a judge’s approval before capturing a suspect, or securing permission for a search before raiding a house.

“Right now, if I suspect someone is a criminal, I can’t catch him without getting permission from a judge, but under emergency law, I can just go and catch him,” Kamal said in an interview Tuesday.

The minister said his agents would also make greater use of a legal provision that allows the Interior Ministry to detain suspects for six months before presenting them to a judge. Regular Iraqi laws also permit that sort of detention, Kamal said, but the threshold for holding a suspect could be lowered if the prime minister allows it.

The death penalty would be reserved for those convicted of the most heinous crimes, such as genocide, homicide, terrorism and kidnapping, according to State Minister Qassim Dawood.

“(Saddam Hussein) would definitely be executed if he is convicted,” Dawood said.

Allawi did not say what charges would be filed against Saddam and the other detainees. But Dawood said the crimes Saddam will be accused of include the Anfal campaign in 1988 in which Iraqi troops were said to have executed some 100,000 Kurds.