Saddam : His Rise and Fall (61 page)

In the early spring of 2004 the CIA effectively gave up on its efforts to extract information from Saddam and handed him over to the FBI. CIA officers were in some respects hamstrung in their dealing with Saddam because they were under orders to do nothing that might undermine the prosecution case when Saddam was eventually put on trial for war crimes. The main objective of the FBI, therefore, was to ensure that they had a watertight prosecution case when the time came for Saddam to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The first stage in the lengthy process of making Saddam face justice for his crimes took place in early July 2004 when he and other key members of the regime who had been captured by the United States were officially handed over to the custody of the new interim Iraqi government of Dr. Ayad Allawi, which had taken responsibility for administering the country until nationwide elections could be held. Shortly before Saddam and his accomplices were handed over, Allawi announced that he was reintroducing the death penalty in Iraq. Saddam was going to trial for his life.

After they were formally handed over to the Iraqi authorities, Saddam and the other high-ranking regime members were transferred to a high-security, American-controlled compound called Camp Cropper, close to
Baghdad's international airport, to await trial. The camp, which consisted of three rows of single-story buildings surrounded by a double ring of razor wire, was located in the grounds of one of Saddam's former palaces, an irony that was not lost on either captives or captors. For most of the time Saddam was kept in solitary confinement in a fifteen-by-fifteen foot cell, which had a self-contained bathroom. Obsessed with hygiene, Saddam washed his clothes by hand in his sink, and cleaned his hands and dishes with baby wipes after each meal. He enjoyed a healthy diet: one of his U.S. guards revealed that the deposed dictator's favorite breakfast food was Raisin Bran Crunch cereal. He spent most of his exercise periods tending a small garden that he had cultivated in the prison yard. His only luxury was Cuban cigars that were shipped to him from his daughters in Jordan in Red Cross parcels. At one point he asked his guards for a Ping-Pong table, but the request was denied.

Apart from the recurrent pain he suffered from his slipped disc, U.S. doctors found that Saddam was in relatively good health, and an initial diagnosis that he might be suffering from prostate cancer was eventually found to be prostatitis, a chronic inflammatory condition that is treated with antibiotics. Saddam was not allowed to congregate with his former Baathist colleagues, and his only contact with the outside world was in the letters he received from his wife and daughters through the Red Cross. In one letter to Sajida, Saddam showed that he had lost none of his self-confidence. “In the name of God the Merciful, to my small family and my big family, peace be with you. As for my spirits and morale, they are high, thanks to the greatness of God.” In conversations with his prison guards Saddam insisted that he was still president of Iraq, even inviting the young Pennsylvania National Guardsmen responsible for his welfare to visit the country once he was restored to power. And he was dismissive of the American President and his father. “The Bush father, son, no good,” Saddam told the guardsmen in jilted English.
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Saddam's refusal to accept his fate was demonstrated in public in early July 2004 when he was brought before Iraq's Special Tribunal, which was set up to try Saddam and his former colleagues for war crimes.

Saddam, codename HVD-1—High Value Detainee One—was driven to a makeshift courtroom in an armor-plated bus. The courtroom was situated in the al-Faw palace on the outskirts of Baghdad, a place where in former times Saddam had entertained foreign dignitaries. On this occasion Saddam at first did not seem to recognize his surroundings. He was shown into the
courtroom wearing a gray pinstriped jacket, brown trousers, and shiny black shoes. He looked leaner and fitter than when he had been pulled from his hiding hole six months previously. Even if he faced the death penalty, Saddam wanted to look his best.

At the start of the proceedings Saddam appeared to be disconcerted, but he soon composed himself. When asked his name, he replied: “I am the president of Iraq.” When the judge challenged this claim, insisting that Saddam was now an ordinary citizen, Saddam interjected: “I am the president of the republic, so you should not strip me of my title to put me on trial.” As the twenty-six-minute hearing continued, Saddam became more and more forthright both in rejecting the charges against him and the legitimacy of the court itself. When the judge, for his own security, declined to identify himself, Saddam accused him of being a stooge of the American occupiers. Referring to President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, Saddam remarked, “I do not want you to feel uneasy. But you know this is all theater by Bush to help him with his campaign. The real criminal is Bush.” Later during the hearing, Saddam could not restrain himself when the judge accused him of unlawfully invading Kuwait. “I can't believe you, as an Iraqi, would say that was a crime,” he said. “I was president when we invaded Kuwait. I was looking out for Iraqi interests against those mad dogs who had tried to turn Iraqi women into ten-dinar prostitutes.” In the opening hearing Saddam outlined the key arguments he was to employ throughout his defense: he was still the legitimate ruler of Iraq, and the court did not have the jurisdiction to try him. No matter what evidence was presented to the court, Saddam, as he had been on so many occasions in the past, was determined to fight to save his skin.

As the final preparations were made in the summer of 2005 to put Saddam on trial, the first of three charges was laid against him by the Special Tribunal, including the massacre at Dujail in 1982 (see chapter eight page 193), in which more than one hundred fifty Iraqi Shiite Muslims were killed. Saddam faced the death sentence if convicted.

If the fallen dictator found it impossible to reconcile himself to his fate, at least the Iraqi people had the consolation of knowing that so long as Saddam was safely locked up in custody, he no longer posed a threat to their well-being. Saddam's thirty-five-year reign of terror had finally and conclusively come to an end, and the Iraqi people were free to embark on the daunting and challenging task of attempting to rebuild their devastated country.