U.S. Begins Laying Groundwork for War Crimes Trials in Iraq

In a joint effort with emerging Iraqi leaders, the Bush administration is planning a new legal process that could eventually bring hundreds of Iraqi officials to trial for war crimes and other major offenses and offer thousands more amnesty in exchange for confessions of their crimes, U.S. officials said Friday.

“There are a lot of victims that have a story to tell. This is going to be a big and important process,” said Pierre-Richard Prosper, a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney who is now State Department ambassador-at-large for war crimes. “It’s not simply holding leaders to account, but also coming to terms with the past. And they both need to move on a simultaneous track to achieve the reconciliation that is needed for Iraq to be able to move forward.”

The United States intends to try some Iraqis, both major politicians and ordinary soldiers, for war crimes allegedly committed against the U.S. during this year’s conflict as well as the 1991 Persian Gulf War to liberate Kuwait, said a senior U.S. official involved in the planning.

U.S. authorities also might prosecute Iraqi officials for the 1993 plot to kill former President George H.W. Bush, although the Justice Department or the White House may have to make the final decision on what the U.S. role would be.

On Friday, Farouk Hijazi, an Iraqi spy official believed to have been involved in the Bush assassination plot, was captured near the Syrian border, U.S. officials said. Hijazi, who recently served as Iraq’s ambassador to Tunisia and is suspected of having links to Al Qaeda, was delivered to the border by Syrian officials, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. trials of Iraqis probably would take place in military-run tribunals in Iraq, adapting various international models dating to Allied prosecutions after World War II.

“There must be credible accountability,” added Prosper, a former U.N. war crimes prosecutor for the Rwanda tribunal. “For crimes committed against U.S. personnel, we, the United States, will prosecute.”

Beyond this limited number of cases, the United States is proposing a three-stage judicial process to deal with a quarter-century of abuses. Washington wants as much of the new system as possible to be determined by a new leadership in Baghdad, while acknowledging that Iraq is likely to need U.S. or coalition input, American officials said.

Iraq will take the lead in the trials of other senior leaders, including Saddam Hussein if he is still alive, although the United States is likely to assist prosecutions by a judicial system still to be created, the officials added.

“Atrocities and abuses by the regime of its own people should be tried by Iraqis,” said the senior U.S. official. “We’re prepared to provide support, which could range from financial aid to legal experts to judges, to make it credible.”

In Senate testimony this month, Prosper said all states, particularly those in the region, should be ready to contribute assistance.

This top tier of trials would focus on the so-called “dirty dozen” of senior leaders around Hussein, including both of his sons and some other family members, as well as many of the 55 on the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis and others not on the list, U.S. officials said.

“Some of these people may have been in lower-level government positions but played a critical role in atrocities that the Iraqi people will want to see prosecuted,” said the senior official. Examples of dozens of expected trials include police and prison officials involved in torture.

But the bulk of the prosecutions will be carried out exclusively by a new Iraqi judicial system after officials who surrendered or were captured are turned over by the United States, U.S. officials said. This second phase could involve hundreds of prosecutions.

However, many rank-and-file government officials and troops may instead end up before an Iraqi truth and reconciliation panel, modeled on South Africa’s commission to deal with atrocities during the apartheid era. The panel could offer them amnesty after a full accounting of their crimes.

The United States is holding between 7,000 and 7,500 Iraqis, the vast majority of them troops, the Pentagon said Friday. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said they will not be moved from Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many Afghans and others have been taken over the last 18 months.

U.S. officials said many, perhaps even most, of the Iraqis may not face formal prosecution.

Washington is warning that the process could take years to unfold.

“Even if we stood up some of these people in court today, the chances of a trial this year are unlikely due to the magnitude of the investigation required to get evidence,” said a State Department official who requested anonymity. “A simple murder case here takes a year before it goes to trial.”

The investigations may require exhumations of victims of mass executions in order to account for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who disappeared during Hussein’s quarter-century rule. The U.S. also wants to track down hundreds of witnesses of his brutality to assemble a complete picture of what transpired, U.S. officials said.

Against the Kurds alone, Hussein’s regime gassed or executed up to 182,000 people in 1988, according to human rights groups. Up to 60,000 Kurds and Shiite Muslims were killed when the regime put down uprisings in 1991.

Now that at least a dozen of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis have surrendered or been captured, U.S. officials hope to begin discussions with emerging Iraqi leaders in the next few weeks about a new judicial system and the various tribunals.

One of the most difficult problems may be finding lawyers who can impartially administer justice and have not been tainted by association with Hussein’s regime, U.S. officials acknowledge.

Washington has been working closely with several exile and opposition groups, including the Iraqi Jurists Assn., for more than a year to design a system to account for regime atrocities.

Now the new civil administration run by retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner will canvass Iraqis who have suffered the most during Hussein’s rule. Some analysts believe they may not be as enthusiastic about a high-profile role by the United States.

But Washington can safely invoke international law to carry out its own trials, some legal experts say.

“It sounds like we are going to do it right this time,” said Prof. Robert K. Goldman, an international law expert at American University. “The Geneva Convention gives us the right, the duty even, to try enemy prisoners who committed war crimes against our soldiers.”

The U.S. prosecutions could cover war crimes such as suspected Iraqi mistreatment or execution of U.S. POWs and Iraqi troops reportedly waving a white flag of surrender, then opening fire on American forces.

Other countries, including Kuwait and Iran, might also seek to prosecute Iraqi officials for offenses against them during Baghdad’s wars with both countries, U.S. officials say. During the 1990-91 invasion and occupation, Iraq killed more than 1,000 Kuwaitis, displaced 1.5 million people and still has not accounted for more than 600 missing, some of whom were believed to have been taken back to Iraq, U.S. officials say.

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Times staff writer David G. Savage contributed to this report.