[excerpt]
The Trial Of Saddam Hussain as described in Hollywood Wiretapping,
the new novel by William Wheaton. ~Ed
Like the Path of Mussolini
The Circus Begins
Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants are led into pens in the center of the courtroom, the media arena. Saddam sits next to Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, who was his intelligence chief; former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan; Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a former chief judge; and Dujail Baath party officials Abdullah Kadhem Ruaid, Ali Daeem Ali, Mohammed Azawi Ali and Mizher Abdullah Rawed.
“State your name, please.”
“Who are you? What is all this? I preserve my constitutional rights as the President of Iraq. I do not recognize the body that has authorized you and I don’t recognize this aggression.”
When the trial adjourns, Saddam wrestles with the guards who grab his arms to escort him out.
The Intelligence Officer
The trial hears its first testimony from a former intelligence agent of Saddam’s, Waddah al-Sheikh. Waddah al-Sheikh’s testimony was taped from his cancer deathbed: “They rounded up 400 people from the town – women, children and old men. Saddam’s personal bodyguards took part in killing people. I don’t know why so many people were arrested. Barzan was the one directly giving the orders. Saddam Hussein decorated many intelligence officers who had taken part in the operation.” Saddam says, “The guards took my pen away, I can’t sign any court papers.“
These Are Not Our Ethics
After former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark rationally criticizes the court for their lack of adequate security and reminds the court that 13 members of Saddam Hussein’s defense team have been assassinated, the chaos soon commences. The judge permits the defense to make its arguments quickly. The familiar tactics are employed; they question the validity of the court. It is illegal to create a war tribunal during an occupation by international law, the defense claim. This is most certainly an occupation. This trial is war by another means, the defense will argue, the court itself is illegal by international law, an illegitimate institution that shackles the rightful President of Iraq.
“Like the path of Mussolini, to resist occupation to the end, that is Saddam Hussein,” he cries, his fist in the air. This Monday is but the beginning of one trial, and this court has said there could be as many as 12 more. Then come accounts of slaughter in the Shiite town. Blood dripping from meat hooks, the use of electric shocks upon Shiites. Saddam had to stop to laugh at one point. A victim takes the stand and recounts the many tortures he saw in that Shiite town in 1982.
Saddam wears black and holds a Koran. His half-brother shouts, “Why don’t you just execute us?”
The victim describes meat hooks with human blood and hair on them. Repeatedly Saddam, who shouts with fists up held, interrupts the court.
“I am not afraid of execution.”
This Shiite town where a failed attempt at an execution took place is said to be a sight of mass slaughter, of human flesh and meat hooks used to torture and distort the human form beyond recognition and then the spark of human essence extinguished with gunfire. The prosecution has a point of anxiety in their eyes; something may actually be a valid point for the defense, if such a thing can be imagined. As vivid as the account is, how is this episode tied directly to Saddam himself?
He yells, with nothing but contempt for the court. He refers to himself in the third person constantly proclaiming that Saddam Hussein is “the President of Iraq”.
“I am not afraid to die,” he shouts, a fist in the air, a Koran in his other hand.
“Through you, we discipline Iraq,” the victim claims he heard an officer say at the sight of the tortures. When the victim recounts that he had seen Saddam’s half-brother in cowboy boots and jeans with a sniper rifle in his hands, Saddam’s half-brother yells in rage.
“Liar, these are not our ethics!”
The former rulers bark like dogs, each bark in purposeful contempt of the court. But the court is illegitimate, the puppet of the American occupation… the victim continues, describing how the Shiites where gathered up, the electric shocks administered, the living flesh burned.
Once, the finest of fantasy art hung on his walls. In one of his paintings, a warrior holding a sword is attacked by a snake emerging from the finger of a large-busted warrior woman with a demon’s statute. In another, a warrior battles a crocodile chained to the wall. His eldest had amassed soft-core and endless cases of Johnnie Walker red label and Members Only jackets, endless leisure suits, endless rapes. His sons died in battle, his boy-grandson holding a shotgun to the last moment. His sons had made him proud in their deaths and how he had sworn revenge against the American dogs. But Saddam Hussein is like the path of Mussolini, following his sons into paradise.
Saddam is escorted from the courtroom, until another date, when the circus without rules will presume. His strategy baffles the whispering prosecution- what, to create a delay? That must be his game. There will be more, surely, accounts of rape rooms, accusations of genocide, more barking defiance and animalistic yelling from the shackled and carefully monitored “President of Iraq”… for his sons died in battle, his eldest son dead with a bottle of cologne, a condom, a bottle of Viagra and a suitcase filled with $200 million American dollars at his side. His sons escaped trial, but Saddam Hussein, he is to be tried. His trial will be long, and filled endlessly with the yelling and spitting of old men.
Go to Hell
Witness A says, ”The security agent forced me to take off my clothes, then I was beaten and then they gave me electric shocks. After that I was in Abu Ghraib prison for four years.”
Witness C says, “I was taken by security forces along with my parents and two sisters, and spent 11 months at Abu Ghraib. My father died after being beaten on the head. They used to bring men to the women’s room and ask them to bark like dogs.” The judge says the court will reconvene on Wednesday. Saddam says, “go to hell.”
My Hand is Clean
“I want to say here, yes, we have been beaten by the Americans and we have been tortured. Yes, I have been beaten, everywhere on my body. The marks are still there. I’m not complaining about the Americans because I can poke their eyes out with my own hands.”
“I have been beaten on every place of my body, and the signs are all over my body,” he says, but for most of the day he is silent.
Ali Mohammed Hassan al-Haydari says his entire family of 43 were rounded up and tortured, his brothers shot dead. “I saw my brother being tortured in front of my eyes,” Witness G, behind the curtain, tells the court. Barzan was present at the detention center. “When I was being tortured, Barzan was sitting and eating grapes,” he says. The bloody testimony drags on. Barzan shouts… ”You are a politician, not a judge.”
“My hand is clean,” responds the judge.
A Death Fit to a Military Leader
In the basement of the Iraqi courthouse, Saddam meets with his lawyers. Ramsey Clark brings up the possibility of capital punishment. “I am the Commander in Chief. I prefer it to be by firing squad”… as opposed to hanging… ”That is the right way for a military leader.” Issam Ghazzawi and Ramsey Clark pace the floor of the courtroom basement.
“Threatening me with death doesn’t mean anything, I couldn’t care less. The life of any one Iraqi is no less valuable than mine. I know the Iraqi people will fight to the end. The Iraqi people are patriotic; they cannot accept foreign rule. All aggression will be resisted to the end. The Americans with their allies will fly out of Iraq very soon, and their puppets will leave even before the Americans. They tried in Iraq and failed badly, so by standing against Bush, we are protecting other countries and regions of the world. Now the U.S. will think a thousand times before daring to attack another country.”
And then after a pregnant pause, he shouts, “long live the insurgency!”
It Hurts Saddam
Yet more torture and killings described in testimony. Saddam shouts, “Death to the U.S.! They lied about weapons of mass destruction before invading Iraq, and now they lie again when they deny beating me!” The first, Witness H, says he was eight years old during the killings in Dujail. “My grandmother, father and uncles had been arrested and tortured, and I never saw my father or uncle again.” Saddam says, “This witness was too young at the time of the incident for his testimony to be reliable. I am sorry to hear of this torture. When I hear that any Iraqi has been hurt, it hurts me too.”
The Daughter of Adultery
The new judge says immediately that he has no patience whatsoever for the rants of Saddam and Barzan. “I can see that it is my duty to underline what Imam Ali said, that if your power has led you to oppress people, remember the judgment will be on you. Political speeches have no place in this courtroom,” Judge Abdel-Rahman says, “You must abide by the rules. Any irrelevant remarks will be struck from the record, and anyone who breaks the rules will be removed from the courtroom and tried as if they were present.” This judge evokes the name of the founding Shiite saint, thus sets the tone for the day to come.
Barzan barks with the ferocity of a desert dog competing for rotting meat, “This court is but the daughter of adultery!” And he is escorted out. Saleh Armouti is then screaming at the judge, and he too is dragged out. Mr. Hussein then had a furious exchange with the judge, “Don’t call yourself an Iraqi,” Saddam yells, after Judge Abdel-Rahman tells him he will be ejected. “I’ve led you for 35 years and now you say, ‘Remove him!’ Shame on you, shame on you!” Saddam removes himself from the courtroom before the bailiffs can forcibly remove him, doing their job for them. Testimony will continue without the shouting of the defense lawyers, the barking and spitting of Barzan, and the bearded and red-eyed Saddam’s disgruntled shouting. A calculated move on the part of the defense to make a mockery of proceedings, to cause the trial to appear but a show, a circus. The carnival of the barking and spitting of Saddam and Barzan will surely recommence, the television cameras ready to transmit the images of Saddam’s face red with blistering rage, his throat horse with as much yelling as his aging body can muster. They are old men and Barzan has cancer, but they will yell and spit nonetheless.
Saddam Questions Authenticity of Documents
March 1, and the trial resumes. All the defendants and defense lawyers are present except lead attorney Khalil al-Dulaimi. Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi presents documents he says are death certificates of Shi’ites.. He also presents a document that he said contained Saddam’s handwriting. The document, which says that Moussawi said four men had been executed by mistake and that two men had been released, also by mistake. Saddam, with less of his bravado says, “Give us proof of the authenticity of the documents. These documents are invalid.” Saddam’s hunger strike staged yesterday has no effect on the goings on of the trial. The prosecution presented what they say was a death warrant signed yesterday by his defendants. On Tuesday, prosecutors presented what they said was a death warrant signed by Saddam in 1984 for 148 men. Theses documents could potentially create a definitive link between Saddam and the crimes carried out in the village. A hunger strike? As though the court and the American forces backing it could care about whether or not Saddam chooses to eat.
Saddam Tries His Hand at the Role of Peacemaker
“I am the elected president.”
“You used to be a head of state. You are a defendant now.”
Saddam reads from a sheet of paper. “My great Iraqi people. I am pained by the recent struggle between Sunni and Shiites. Let the people unite and resist the invaders and their backers. Don’t fight among yourselves. In your resistance to the invasion by the Americans and Zionists and their allies, you were great. You were great in my eyes and you remain so. It’s only a matter of time until the sun rises and you’ll be victorious. I am trying to extinguish the fire with few drops of water. Of all religions and sects, I do not discriminate among you. What pains me most is what I heard recently about something that aims to harm our people, the bombing of this shrine in Samarra, the atrocity against the Shiites amongst us is the act of simple criminals. What happened in the last days is bad. You will live in darkness and rivers of blood for no reason. The bloodshed that they (the Americans) have caused to the Iraqi people only made them more intent and strong to evict the foreigners from their land and liberate their country.” Abdel-Rahman screams, “Respect yourself!”
Saddam shouts back: “You respect yourself!”
“You are a defendant in a major criminal case, concerning the killing of innocents. You have to respond to this charge,” -Abdel-Rahman
“What about those who are dying in Baghdad? Are they not innocents? I am talking to the Iraqi people.”
The session is closed as Saddam continues reading from the paper to an empty room.
The Death of Milosevic
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has now left Iraq for a short time, and where is this defense attorney for our beloved president, Saddam? Why, it seems he must pay his dues to one Milosevic, former leader of the Serbs, who has passed away! Why, Milosevic for years was in the process that his ally Saddam has now begun, the process of being tried for human rights violations. But it would seem that in the process of awaiting his verdict for atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia of ethnic cleansing and mass rapes at The Hague in the Netherlands, that his trial was cut short by his death by natural causes. Former U.S. attorney general was deeply grieved by the loss of Milosevic, a leader he always strongly supported. “History will prove Milosevic right.” Conceivably, Saddam Hussein could share his fate- that is to say that with the extension of such trials, he could be spared final verdict and punishment by death from natural causes, meaning he could die like an aging academic, spending the last years of his life lecturing and debating, then quietly passing away in his sleep.
The Conclusion
The prosecutor stands before the podium. “Facing a possible death sentence, Saddam Hussein could stand trial as early as next month for the killing of thousands of Kurds and destruction of their villages. Saddam’s co-accused will include his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as ‘Chemical Ali’ for his role in a poison gas attack against the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988 that killed 5,000 people. We declare the investigations are completed in the case called the Anfal campaign in which thousands of women, children and men were killed. The accused are being transferred to the criminal court,” the prosecutor says to the court. “They will be tried according to the Iraqi law for charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. And for these inhumanities Saddam faces the possibility of death by hanging.” So the conclusion of this trial is really that it will be followed by another trial, with even more gruesome testimonial detail, the crime now escalated to genocide, but the pause. What, if anything, does this mean?
WW