U.S. Team Is Sent to Develop Case in Hussein Trial

WAR CRIMES

Saturday, March 6, 2004
By Neil A. Lewis & David Johnston

New York Times Writers

Mr. Chalabi said the Iraqis might choose to try lesser-ranking officials before Mr. Hussein. "If you try a smaller-ranking person for a war crime like the attacks on the Kurds and he is found guilty, then all we have to do with respect to Saddam Hussein is show the chain of command," he said.

Fatima Authir, 3, plays in front of a defaced portrait of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Iraq.

Image Credit: Lynsey Addario -- Corbis, for NYT

WASHINGTON -- NYT
Following a White House directive, the Justice Department is sending a high-level team of prosecutors and investigators to Iraq to take charge of assembling and organizing the evidence to be used in a war crimes trial of Saddam Hussein, administration and Iraqi officials said in recent days.

The previously undisclosed directive signed by Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, directs the government to take the initiative in preparing a case against Mr. Hussein that will ultimately be run by Iraqis. The order, issued in January, gives the Justice Department the authority to act as the lead agency in the effort.

The first officials in a delegation of about 50 lawyers, investigators and prosecutors from the Justice Department are leaving this weekend for Iraq, a Justice Department official said. The group will be assigned to a new office called the Regime Crimes Adviser's Office under the American occupation authority.

The office, which is to include legal officials from other countries, will be responsible for sorting through tens of thousands of pages of evidence and preparing a report that will amount to a blueprint for Iraqi prosecutors. Cartons of documents collected by human rights organizations with evidence of atrocities by the Hussein government have been airlifted into Iraq in recent weeks.

For his part, Mr. Hussein, who has been under interrogation by American officials since his capture on Dec. 14, has revealed little that could be used in any trial, government officials said in recent days. He has discussed few specific issues and at times comports himself as a head of state, the officials said.

The effort to develop a case involves a delicate balancing act for the administration, which is trying to turn over as complete a brief as possible for the Iraqis to use against Mr. Hussein without appearing to dominate the process in a way that could undercut the independence of the Iraqi authorities. "We're trying to balance a bunch of interests here," said one senior administration official. "We intend to bring quite a few resources to the table but not too many so it looks like a completely American process."

Any trials of Mr. Hussein and other senior members of his administration could also carry important political implications in an election year. Administration officials say they expect the proceedings to provide graphic and substantial evidence of the horrific nature of Mr. Hussein's government.

Facing wide-scale criticism after no unconventional weapons have been found in Iraq, administration officials have increasingly turned to the evidence of the wide-scale atrocities committed by the Hussein government as a justification for going to war. But inevitable tension between American planners and Iraqis eager to demonstrate their independence may play a role in the way that issue is handled as well. Salem Chalabi, the Iraqi lawyer in charge of the war crimes issue, said in a recent interview that while he understood the administration's political needs, the trials might not occur until late in the year, after the American elections, and that Mr. Hussein might not even be the first defendant.

"We need and welcome the Americans' help and role in this," Mr. Chalabi, nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, said in a telephone interview from Iraq. "But no one should misunderstand that this will be an Iraqi process with decisions by Iraqis."

(More: NYTimes.com / International)

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Dan