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2nd Saddam Hussein Trial Set to Start

By Brian Padden
Irbil, Iraq
20 August 2006

The second mass murder trial of Saddam Hussein is set to open this week in Baghdad. The former Iraqi dictator will go on trial along with seven of the top ranking members of his former regime. They are accused of trying to commit genocide in the 1987-1988 campaign against Iraq's Kurds.

The Kurdish Regional government of Iraq has spent the last two years preparing for this day - when Saddam Hussein and seven of his top people will finally answer charges of attempted genocide. This case will focus on Operation Anfal, an Iraqi military campaign against the Kurds carried out in 1987 and 1988.

Perhaps the worst and most infamous part of this campaign was the chemical weapons attack against the town of Halabja on March 16, 1988, where, according to the U.S. State Department, an estimated 5,000 people were killed. At the time Hussein tried to justify the attack by accusing the people of Halabja of giving aid to the enemy during the Iran-Iraq war.

Adalet Salah, human rights advisor for the Ministry Of Extra Regional Affairs In Kurdistan, says the government hopes the world will come to understand the extent of the atrocities committed by Hussein.

"It is the greatest duty of the Kurdistan Regional Government to respect this memory as a great thing and to prosecute this case against the accused who attacked the people of Kurdistan so long ago," said Salah.

According to Salah, prosecutors have documented 182,000 deaths, including many children and infants, and the destruction of 4,500 villages in northern Iraq. They have prepared 5,000 specific charges against the accused and have 1,200 witnesses prepared to testify.

Salah says she and many Kurds will be watching to see how Hussein answers the charges related to the killing of children.

"Always he was talking about how those Kurds are traitors. And they are working against Iraq, against the

government, and the country," he said. "My question is does he still have the same opinion about those Kurds?"

The trial is set to open on Monday, August 21 and is expected to continue for months.