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March 20, 2004, Scotsman SADDAM WAS FOUND COWERING IN A HOLE ... BUT WHERE IS HE NOW AND WHEN WILL HE BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE? Gethin Chamberlain THE last time most people saw Saddam Hussein, he was standing in front of a white-tiled wall, the rubber-gloved hands of a partly-seen examiner rummaging through his unkempt hair for lice. Dishevelled and disorientated, the man who had ruled supreme in Iraq for more than 30 years had on his face a look of resignation and defeat. It was 14 December, nearly nine months after British and American troops had poured across the borders of his country and precipitated the end of his regime. The Americans took him away, shaved him, and photographed him again, just to make sure no-one was in any doubt about the identity of the man who was now their prisoner. For a man whose image adorned every major public building in Iraq and who revelled in the limelight, the last year has been humbling. The giant pictures have been knocked down or shot away, his face has disappeared from banknotes and his public outings have been few and far between - a brief appearance on Iraqi television after the first attempt on his life in the opening hours of the war, a few snatched and blurry moments in a Baghdad marketplace as the end loomed, then again under the unforgiving camera lights after capture. After the Americans stormed into Baghdad, Saddam made a prisoner of himself. When the Americans tracked him down to his hole in the ground, they simply took over the role of jailers. They pulled him out of his hole in the ground and dragged him blinking into the light for a few hours. Then he was gone again. To those outside the tightest of tight security loops, he remains as elusive now as he ever was on the run. Hardly anyone has seen him. He is almost certainly in a cell at the heart of the US complex outside Baghdad airport, the most secure of all the American's Iraqi bases, so secure that no attack has come close to it, so secretive that hardly any information filters out. A few glimpses have been provided by former prisoners, but they were too insignificant to have rubbed shoulders with the really important players, those whose faces featured on the infamous pack of cards. Tariq Aziz is there as well. Few people in Iraq doubt that he will end his days dangling from the end of a rope. The old Iraqi system allowed for a quick death by firing squad for those who admitted and showed remorse for their crimes; the rope they reserved for those they felt deserved to suffer. Those who hope for an international solution, a trial before an independent tribunal, can press their case all they like, but they will be disappointed. The United States has no intention of letting that happen; it would be too complex and legally fraught and the chances of finding a third country where a trial could be held - as with the Lockerbie trial - are negligible. When they have finished interrogating him, and when the Iraqis have put in place a legal framework for a trial, Saddam will be handed over. Sources inside the coalition authority suggest that they will be lucky to get him into court by November. Some have suggested that it could take five years to build a full case; no-one really expected Saddam to be taken alive, so no -one had spent much time preparing a case against him. Others disagree, suggesting that one of the priorities of the new administration will be putting their former leader on trial. But however the trial proceeds, there is only one viable outcome: Iraq's new administration will not want the old dictator locked up for any length of time - too sensitive, too difficult, too much of a focus for his diehard supporters. Saddam, in all likelihood, will face the hangman's noose. A year to the day after the start of the war, information on Saddam and what he has told his interrogators remains at a premium. As one coalition official put it this week: "Those who normally would know, don't know anything. And anyone else who claims to know is either a liar or a fool." It hasn't stopped the speculation, and the whereabouts of Saddam is prime conspiracy theory territory. The theories started the moment he was captured, with stories circulating that he had been taken prisoner by the Kurds months earlier and held until an opportune political moment to be paraded to the world. It is true that the Kurds were heavily involved in releasing news of the capture, but it seems unlikely they could have kept such a sensational piece of information to themselves for very long, as evidenced by the way Kurdish leaders fell over themselves to break the news before the Americans had a chance. There has been speculation that Saddam has been spirited out of the country, to Guantanamo Bay or to Afghanistan or to some other ostensibly safe haven; it is a theory favoured by some of the more sensible observers, who argue that the risk of holding Saddam inside Iraq is too great. But weighing heavily against this is the political danger of Iraqis discovering that he had been removed from the country. That would suggest the Americans were planning to do some sort of deal with Saddam, perhaps allowing him to live out his days in some third country in return for information about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorist networks, or whatever it is he can offer. That will not happen. He was captured after a tip-off on 13 December - a Saturday. The word was that he was hiding out in a farmhouse about ten miles south-east of his home town of Tikrit. US commanders sent the First Brigade combat team from the 4th Infantry Division to kill or capture him; either was acceptable. They found him in a hole under a polystyrene cover camouflaged with bricks and dirt. He looked bemused, but put up no fight. They put him in a helicopter and flew him to Baghdad, to one of his old palaces, and his date with the cameras. Despite the intense secrecy surrounding what happened next, what happened to Saddam after his last public appearance is not a complete mystery. He was, almost certainly, held prisoner near Baghdad airport, along with the other high-value detainees. Former prisoners have talked of windowless metal containers used to house senior figures and of how prisoners are fed on cold US army rations and beaten or shocked with stun guns if they step out of line. Saddam will be in solitary confinement; one report suggested the wall of his cell had been knocked through to give him exclusive access to a shower and toilet. As a prisoner of war - a right not accorded to many of those seized by the coalition - he has certain rights. According to the Geneva Convention, he should be housed under conditions as favourable as those of his captors and provided with enough food and water to keep him healthy. He should be supplied with suitable clothes, underwear and shoes for the climate and allowed to wear a uniform if he chooses to do so. He is also entitled to a monthly salary equivalent in value to 75 Swiss francs, which he should be allowed to spend on additional food or other items. Last month the Red Cross sent representatives to visit him in his cell; a doctor was among the delegation, which took away with them a letter from Saddam to his family. No other details were made public, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, other than that the visit took place in Iraq. Despite lurid stories about the methods the American interrogators will be using to extract information from Saddam, it seems likely the pressure being applied will be psychological, rather than physical. The Geneva Convention entitles him to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number. It prohibits physical or mental torture, and any other form of coercion. "Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind," it says. If the Americans were hoping he would gradually come to terms with his situation and start to talk, they have been disappointed. Early claims that he was singing like a canary were, at best, optimistic. Shortly after his capture, Lieutenant-Colonel Ricardo Sanchez, head of the coalition forces in Iraq, said Saddam was co-operating. He was tired and resigned to his fate, Sanchez said. But Ahmed Chalabi, a member of the Iraq Governing Council taken to see him in his cell shortly after his capture, said he showed no signs of repentance. When he tackled Saddam about the Iraqis he had killed, the reply was: "They were thieves and traitors." Since then, it appears Saddam's position has not changed. Earlier this week Richard Armitage, the US deputy secretary of state, admitted he was not giving up much useful information under interrogation, but he was at least talking to his captors. "I occasionally see the debriefs and he's a pretty wily guy and not giving much information, but he seems to be enjoying the debate," he said. "He sure thinks he's smarter than everyone else, that's for sure." But Armitage said the CIA, which is taking the lead in the interrogation, still believed it was making progress and there were leads from the interrogation that could be analysed to produce evidence. If that is true, it is an improvement on January when British officials said Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, told Tony Blair that Saddam was "not offering information of an operationally useful kind". At some point, they will have to conclude he has told them all that he is going to tell them. At some point, he must go before a court. Preparations are already well under way for that day. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of Iraq's Governing Council, has promised a fair trial before the Special Tribunal for Crimes Against Humanity, which was set up by the council in December. Iraqi judges are working with coalition legal experts on the legal framework needed for a successful prosecution. There is a debate about whether he can be tried for genocide, or perhaps just on criminal charges, and a search for documentary proof of his crimes. If he makes it to the courtroom, it is likely the trial will be held in the Baghdad Clock Tower, a chamber once used to store gifts sent by friends from around the world. The Americans are keen to see a quick and successful prosecution, and Armitage is confident of getting the result they are after. "There's a good deal, I think, of interest in Iraq for seeing the tyrant finally brought to his knees," he said. The Kuwaiti government has already prepared a list of charges it wants Saddam to face relating to the occupation of the country in 1990-91. It is co -operating with Iraqi prosecutors to arrange for involvement in the trial and has prepared numerous files, including hundreds of testimonies by Kuwaiti and other victims of the former Iraqi regime. The Kuwaiti Council of Ministers recently formed a committee to join Kuwait's prosecution in Saddam's trial and Hamed al-Othman, Kuwait's public prosecutor, wants the death penalty for the former Iraqi leader. They are unlikely to be disappointed: Saddam Hussein has a date with the hangman.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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