Iraqi Ex-Officers Pledge to Put Hussein on Trial

Winding up a three-day meeting on how to depose President Saddam Hussein, a group of former Iraqi military officers said they would support war crimes tribunals for the leader and his top aides if he were removed from power.

The 65 defectors from Hussein’s forces issued a statement in London affirming their commitment to any effort to topple him and promised that the army would be subordinate to civilian authority in a democratic, post-Hussein Iraq.

The statement said the group would charge the main figures in Hussein’s regime “with full responsibility for the crimes committed by the authority during the years they have been in power.”