A Week of Waiting and Watching for Iraqis

As Iraq continues to await the final results of its constitutional referendum, the first trial of former President Saddam Hussein and his deputies was scheduled to begin this morning.

Hussein and seven co-defendants were to be brought into court to face human rights charges in connection with alleged retaliation against the Shiite Muslim town of Dujayl after an attempt on Hussein’s life there in 1982.

The head of the Iraqi High Criminal Court’s prosecution department, who spoke on condition he not be identified out of fear for his safety, said recently that he would open the trial with an hourlong speech presenting the case against the defendants. Defense lawyers, who have accused the tribunal of failing to provide documents, testimony and access to defendants, are expected to submit motions calling for a delay.

Officials involved in the trial have said privately that they expect a swift adjournment, with the next courtroom hearing in several weeks.

Meanwhile, official results of the constitutional referendum are expected in coming days. Early totals from Saturday’s balloting show the draft document garnering enough votes to pass, but confusion swirled in Iraq after election officials issued a statement saying unusually high yes votes in some provinces had triggered an automatic scrutinizing of ballots.

Officials were tight-lipped about the investigation and a timetable for releasing results. “We will take our time to check everything and then release the numbers,” election commission spokesman Farid Ayar said.

Officials said yes votes were as high as 99% in Shiite and Kurdish provinces, raising suspicions of irregularities.

“It looks very bad,” an official close to the election process said. “But it might be also natural. There might be cases where there are 99% yes votes.”

Iraq’s Sunni Arab population, the driving force behind the insurgency, vehemently opposed the proposed constitution, and Shiites and Kurds supported it. Iraqis fear that this stark division, as well as Hussein’s trial, could exacerbate sectarian and ethnic tensions.

At least 1,975 American troops and thousands more Iraqis have died since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

On Tuesday, after several days of relative quiet, the capital again shook with several loud explosions. The U.S. military announced the death of two Marines in western Iraq in a firefight with insurgents near Rutbah. Four suspected insurgents were also killed.

Later, another U.S. military announcement said one soldier was killed and two others were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol near Iskandariya. None of the casualties were immediately identified.

Police said gunmen in Baghdad killed Iyad Abdul Ghani Yousif, an advisor to the industry minister, Tuesday morning in the Jadida district, and Hossein Ali, an official in the Interior Ministry, was shot to death Monday night. A car bomb and roadside bomb targeting security officials injured half a dozen people.

Violence also broke out in the Shiite southern city of Amarah. Two police officers were killed in front of their home by unidentified gunmen firing automatic weapons in broad daylight. A former Baath Party official was also slain. A Shiite leader narrowly escaped assassination.

At the opening of Hussein’s trial today, the former president is to appear in a cage-like enclosure with chest-high iron bars or in a bulletproof glass cell.

Human rights experts and legal professionals have complained that the tribunal, which was set up by Hussein’s domestic and international enemies, runs the risk of being seen as a show trial or an act of vengeance, ultimately obscuring the former regime’s actions.

“If the trial is fair, if there is a real airing of the crimes that are alleged, if there is some ability on the part of the defense to try to refute those charges, I think that will bring a much greater public recognition of the crimes that have happened,” said Richard Dicker, a war crimes expert with Human Rights Watch. The organization has chronicled many of the former regime’s alleged atrocities.

After the preliminary proceedings, a three-member prosecution team will present testimony from about 35 witnesses before a five-panel judge, the lead prosecutor said. Iraqi law does not make provisions for jury trials.

Some Iraqi and international legal experts worry about the competence of the tribunal. Iraq’s lawyers and judges were unfamiliar with much of human rights law during the Hussein regime.

“Their technique is very weak, because the court has no executive mechanism and has no contact with other state offices,” said an Iraqi criminal court judge who asked not to be named.

Many Iraqis say they are indifferent to the trial. Instead they are focused on surviving amid electricity outages, water shortages, violence and unemployment.

“This trial of Saddam is becoming a farce and a joke,” said Moayed Adami, a Sunni cleric who heads Abu Hanifa Mosque in north Baghdad. “We need more security and services. Whenever a crisis emerges, they bring up this issue of Saddam’s trial.”

But the victims of the former regime’s alleged crimes are eager for Hussein to be tried.

In late 1981, Hadi Fadil Abbas was home with his brother Sadiq, who was on a weeklong leave from fighting the war against Iran, when they heard a knock on the door. “Scores of security police and popular army rushed inside our house and deployed in a horrible way,” Abbas said.

“Within seconds they were able to fill the whole house, each room, each corridor, upstairs.”

The police grabbed his brother and Abbas has not seen him since, he said. “So far we are not able to find anything which indicates the place of his burial,” Abbas said.

He said he looked forward to watching the trial on television and seeing Hussein brought to justice.

“I wish that Saddam will be executed,” he said. “Most of the Iraqis wish this, even those who have not lost any member of their family.

“His death is a remedy to our deep injuries.”