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Saddam Hussein's genocide trial resumes
today
11.9.2006
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BAGHDAD, September 11, -- The second trial of
Saddam Hussein, on charges of genocide in connection
with a crackdown on
Kurds, resumed Monday after a 19-day hiatus.
Saddam and six co-defendants face a possible death
penalty for the killings of tens of thousands of
Kurds during the Anfal campaign, a massive military
assault in Kurdistan (northern Iraq) in the 1980s.
The offensive levelled hundreds of villages and used
chemical weapons on many of them. Residents were
herded into prison camps where many of the men
disappeared and were executed, according to
prosecutors.
The trial's resumption on the fifth anniversary of
the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States
bore a tinge of irony in light of a recent U.S.
Senate Intelligence report that found no link
between Saddam and the al-Qaida terror
network which carried out the attacks that killed
some 3,000 people. |
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP |
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The Bush administration argued that a U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq was needed to unseat Saddam because
he possessed weapons of mass destruction and had
ties to al-Qaida.
Even as recently as an Aug. 21 news conference,
President George W. Bush said people should "imagine
a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the
capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and
"who had relations with (deceased al-Qaida in Iraq
leader Abu Musab) al-Zarqawi."
Although Saddam's link with Al-Qaida has been
debunked, as well as Iraq's possessing weapons of
mass destruction at the time of the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion, the Anfal case pointed to his regime's
alleged use of poison gas against Iraqi citizens.
AP
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