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Lawyer: Saddam wants to sue Bush, Blair
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-27 08:57
Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer said Thursday that the deposed Iraqi president
wants US President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair tried on
allegations of committing war crimes.
Khalil al-Dulaimi said Saddam wants to sue both leaders, along with US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for allegedly authorizing the use of weapons
such as depleted uranium artillery shells, white phosphorous, napalm and cluster
bombs against Iraqis.
Former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, one
of Saddam's lawyers, front, and Saddam's chief Iraqi lawyer Khalil
al-Dulaimi , back, leave in a car upon their arrival in Amman Airport,
Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006. [AP] | "We will sue
Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld in The Hague for using such weapons of mass
destruction," al-Dulaimi, in Jordan, told The Associated Press in Baghdad during
a telephone interview.
No complaint has been filed to the International Criminal Court in The
Netherlands, but al-Dulaimi said Saddam's foreign defense team will present it
"very soon."
"President Saddam intends to bring those criminals to justice for their mass
killings of Iraqis in Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah and Qaim and abusing prisoners
at Abu Ghraib," the lawyer added.
Saddam also wants all Iraqis who have had relatives killed or had property
damaged should receive at least $500,000 each.
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein looks at
prosecutors as he speaks at his trial in Baghdad December 22, 2005.
[Reuters/file] | There have been several
allegations that the United States used outlawed weapons, such as napalm, in the
November 2004 Fallujah offensive, but the Pentagon has denied using it.
In November, the Pentagon acknowledged that U.S. troops used white
phosphorous shells against insurgent strongholds in the same Fallujah battle,
adding that they are a standard weapon and not banned by any international
weapons convention to which the United States is a signatory.
Use of white phosphorous is covered by Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on
Conventional Weapons, which prohibits use of the substance as an incendiary
weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces
in civilian areas. The United States is not a signatory to the convention.
U.S. soldiers have also claimed they have fallen ill to exposure to depleted
uranium artillery shells in Iraq, but the Pentagon has said metal does not cause
ailments.
Depleted uranium is the hard, heavy metal created as a
byproduct of enriching uranium for nuclear reactor fuel or weapons material.
Most studies have indicated that depleted uranium exposure will not harm
soldiers. But a 2002 study by Britain's Royal Society said soldiers who ingest
or inhale enough depleted uranium could suffer kidney damage. It cautioned that
there were too many uncertainties in the study to draw reliable conclusions.
Saddam, his half brother Barzan Ibrahim and six other defendants are on trial
in the 1982 killing of more than 140 Shiite Muslims after an attempt on Saddam's
life in the northern town of Dujail. They could face death by hanging if
convicted.
But the trial, which started Oct. 19, has been complicated by the killings of
two defense lawyers, courtroom brawls and Tuesday's postponement amid the
replacement of the tribunal's top two judges. The case is set to resume
Sunday.
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