Trials to Start for Heads of Former Iraqi Regime

Iraq’s interim prime minister announced Tuesday that some of the former regime’s top officials would go on trial next week and warned that violence could worsen after next month’s elections.

In a speech to the interim national assembly, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi made only a brief reference to the start of the trials. But he previously said that Ali Hassan Majid, often known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in poisonous gas attacks on ethnic Kurds in 1988, probably would be one of the first to go on trial.

“The trial will begin next week of the symbols of the former regime who will appear in succession to ensure that justice is done in Iraq,” Allawi told the national assembly here.

Former President Saddam Hussein, who was captured by U.S. forces a year ago, and 11 of his top aides are in custody. They appeared in court in July for the first time to hear preliminary charges against them. Hussein probably would not be among those whose trials are slated to start soon, several experts on Iraqi courts said.

Mowaffak Rubaie, the national security advisor, said he was not sure how many trials might get underway in the next few days. He said that the trials were important for the nation’s “psychological healing” but that “they need to be done right; we need to show the world that these trials meet international standards.”

Rubaie was quoted this week as saying that Hussein’s trial was unlikely to start before 2006.

Bakhtiar Amin, the human rights minister, said in response to questions from Agence France-Presse news service that he thought the trials would begin in March.

War crimes trials are very complicated, and they are especially difficult when the goal is to establish who was responsible for command decisions that led to atrocities. The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague has been going on for more than two years.

Iraq, which had no judicial framework for war crimes trials, has been going through a deliberate process to prepare for them. Teams of Iraqi lawyers and judges are backed up by more than 75 foreign experts, many from the United States and Britain, and have been helping to prepare the evidence and organize the cases.

Allawi’s comments came as he geared up to launch his election campaign. He plans to announce his slate of candidates today and is widely expected to run with interim Iraqi President Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a Sunni tribal sheik, and others for seats in the transitional national assembly.

The campaign period officially begins today, when all political groups must file their list of candidates and registration of voters living in Iraq must be completed.

Although preparations for the election are moving forward and it is expected to be held as scheduled, violence Tuesday again demonstrated that the country remained volatile.

A car bomb exploded early in the day at the Green Zone entrance that was hit by a blast the day before. Seven people were believed to have been killed and 12 were injured in Tuesday’s attack at the government compound. At least seven people were killed there Monday. All the victims in both attacks were Iraqis.

In his remarks to the interim national assembly, Allawi suggested that even the vote late next month would not end the violence. “The terrorist operations will not end after elections but might escalate,” he said.

However, the number of daily attacks has dropped to 50 from 80 since U.S. and Iraqi troops seized the city of Fallouja from insurgents last month, he said.

“The terrorist attacks are going in two directions: The first is that they are trying to scare government officials and their families, and the second is hitting the economic infrastructure so that there is chaos,” Allawi said.

Although the prime minister did not mention it specifically, sabotage against pipelines around Baghdad has greatly reduced fuel supplies, creating near riots as people wait in line for hours to gas up their cars. Black market prices for gasoline have soared.

Electricity generation is almost at its lowest point since the war began, with just 4,100 megawatts being produced daily despite demand levels nearly twice that, senior U.S. officials said. Although some of the electricity shortfall is due to seasonal repair, it is also a result of sabotage and security problems, which have made it difficult to complete larger infrastructure projects.

Against the backdrop of tension and violence, U.S. troops based at Camp Liberty in western Baghdad were treated Tuesday to a United Services Organization show, which featured actor Robin Williams, former National Football League quarterback John Elway and model and host of Fox Sport’s Net’s “54321” Leeann Tweeden.