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Nobles: Iraqi Judge Raad Juhi, for risking his life to see that justice is served. He's the judge who audiences watched meticulously question Saddam Hussein last week during the former dictator's court hearing, facing down the man he once worked for as a Ba'athist jurist. Though recognized by many Iraqis, Judge Juhi's identity was withheld from the Western media until a British newspaper published his name last week amid much controversy. The judge still refuses to have his face publicized, which is why viewers saw only his profile during the Saddam arraignment. Married with three sons, Judge Juhi has a...

This is not Saddam 07/07/2004 11:54 The man the Americans are parading is not the real Saddam Hussein When a liar is clever and careful, he is convincing because he is plausible and covers all his tracks. However, the longer the lie is spun out, the more clues are left. The Bush regime has been neither clever, nor careful nor plausible in its disastrous foreign policy, which culminates in parading a "Saddam" before the cameras who is certainly not the real Saddam Hussein, ex-President of Iraq. The first attempts at justifying the illegal act of butchery called the Second Gulf...

Check out these pictures of Saddam during his arraignment, and read the captions. Hint: DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF = WTF You'll have to click on the link, because there are too many pictures with captions for me to include here. What Saddam Does During His Arraignment And yes, it has already been posted TWICE, but neither of those threads got any traffic, and this is too funny for many of us to miss.

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Saddam in the dock wows the town he gassedBy Nicholas BirchTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished July 6, 2004 HALABJA, Iraq -- Hama Kerim, a 51-year-old notary in this town where Saddam Hussein gassed 5,000 Kurds to death in 1988, describes seeing the deposed dictator in a courtroom last week as the second-best day of his life.     "Nothing can beat the sight of Saddam being dragged out of his hole by U.S. troops" in December, he said in an interview yesterday.     Mr. Kerim described the carnival atmosphere that descended on the town when the trial began last week. Despite warnings...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 7/4/4 - Baghdad, Sadr City, Qandil mountains, Hilla, Qiqihar, Titan BREAKING: Baghdad - Justice Delivered BREAKING: Sadr City - Shiites demand execution of Saddam BREAKING: Qandil mountains - Kurds announce end of six-year cease-fire BREAKING: Hilla - Polish troops find cyclosarin in 17 Grad rockets BREAKING: Qiqihar- 17 chemical bombs that he unearthed BREAKING: Titan - America's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer QFN ==== QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS PICTURES YOU MAY NEVER SEE IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA Happy Birthday America. ========= Baghdad ========= AT THE IRAQI TRIBUNAL -JUSTICE, AMERICAN-STYLE IS SERVED TO TYRANTS In...

Saddam Hussein's response to being brought before the Iraqi court which will try him for the thousands of murders he committed when he was President of Iraq has helped the world to understand how he managed to rule that country for 35 years. He has not been cowed or intimidated, and has shown no sign of a sense of humiliation, still less guilt. He has swaggered in front of the Iraqi court, his glistening contempt for the proceedings evident in every word he said. His unrepentant demeanour is evidently being extremely well received by many Arabs. Those Iraqis who remain...

Saddam court coverage was 'shambolic' Claire Cozens, press and publishing correspondent Friday July 2, 2004 Saddam coverage: 'just the way things are done here at the moment' The world's media descended on Baghdad this week to witness the historic court appearance of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But for journalists covering the hearing it was an exercise in enormous frustration, with only a handful of media organisations allowed in to the court room. Broadcasters and press alike were furious with the arrangements, which left print journalists struggling to obtain any information on the day that one of the most...

Saddam Hussein being led in shackles from an Iraqi courtroom on Thursday, after hearing a list of preliminary charges against him and 11 other former Iraqi leaders. Shrunk to Size, Hussein Faces His Reckoning By JOHN F. BURNS Published: July 4, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq — It was only in the courtroom, at the American military base, that their physical insignificance, their sheer unremitting ordinariness, became so plain. On television last Thursday, the images of the 12 former Iraqi leaders conveyed an altogether bigger impression, perhaps because the lens tightened until their faces filled the screen. But to a reporter sitting...

AS AN Iraqi prisoner, Saddam Hussein occupies a position of unique significance: more than just a fallen dictator, more than a war criminal, he is once again the personification of sovereign Iraq. In a twisted, negative way, of course. For the possession of this prisoner is one of the few palpable manifestations of power for prime minister Iyad Allawi’s new government. As was evident at an Iraqi judicial hearing in Baghdad this week, Saddam will continue to exploit the drama of his special prestige to say, effectively, American puppets may come and go, but, as Louis XIV put it, "L'état,...

SADDAM Hussein was "very demure and scared" during his first court hearing, according to Salem Chalabi, head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal which is trying the former dictator. The fallen tyrant appeared defiant in the dock from TV footage beamed around the world, saying: "Bush is the real criminal." However, Mr Chalabi said Saddam suffered a series of mood swings. "The worst mood swing was when the judge began to read the charges against him," Mr Chalabi told BBC2’s Newsnight programme. "His mood suddenly dropped and he realised what he was up against - except when it came to Kuwait....

NEW YORK -- U.S. news networks agreed to let the American military censor out certain images of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s court hearing Thursday in Baghdad, one in a bizarre series of events surrounding coverage of the session. American and Iraqi officials did not want any footage shown of Iraqi guards or court personnel, and they asked broadcast and cable news nets to honor this request. But the situation took an unexpected turn even before the hearing began, when U.S. officials ordered CNN and Al-Jazeera, the pool camera crews, to disconnect their audio equipment. Officials said it was...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal prosecuting Saddam Hussein and 11 of his lieutenants has outlined the path forward in the biggest legal case in the history of Iraq. Salem Chalabi said that as a first step he will be pushing for the group of 11, who include the likes of Saddam's presidential adviser and first cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid and former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, to be jailed in separate cells as soon as Friday. "Right now only number one (Saddam) is isolated from the rest," Chalabi told reporters late Thursday. "One bad thing...

There he was, back with the same old bluster. Saddam Hussein's recovered bravado, to be sure, is directly a result of his American captors' having provided him with a warm bed and three squares a day and dental care and whatnot these past seven months. This is not the same filthy, feeble Saddam who got dragged out of a hole in the ground. It's amazing how much fresher a man can feel when he isn't sleeping in the dirt. Several of his fellow defendants, for their part, seemed to be swaggering a bit less - Chemical Ali, for one, was...

BAGHDAD -- An aged but combative Saddam Hussein appeared in an Iraqi court yesterday morning, facing charges of war crimes against his neighbors and genocide against his people.     "I am Saddam Hussein, the president of the Republic of Iraq," the unrepentant former dictator told a special tribunal convened to try the top dozen members of his former regime. He said President Bush was the "real criminal."     It was the first time that the former dictator had been seen in public since his medical examination after being found in a "spider hole" in December.     Most of the people gathered in Baghdad's...

Former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer said yesterday's televised images of Saddam Hussein arraigned before an Iraqi judge in a Baghdad courtroom marked a milestone for the fledgling government.     "It's hard if you haven't been there to realize the emotions that surround Saddam among Iraqis," Mr. Bremer told editors and reporters of The Washington Times in an hourlong interview conducted at the Old Executive Office Building.     "It's an extremely emotional thing for Iraqis to see Saddam as they saw him today, facing a justice that he denied his own people."     As the trial progresses and the new government finds its...

[snip] This week's formal transfer of legal authority means that Saddam no longer is considered a prisoner of war, with full Geneva Conventions protection. He and his ex-aides are now criminal defendants, answerable solely to Iraqi law. It's a critical moment for Iraq's new government, which must demonstrate that it has a credible justice system if it hopes to establish a true democracy. Thus, Baghdad's new regime plans to broadcast the trial live, so that the world can see "what Saddam has done to virtually every person, every individual in the country," according to Iraq's National Security Advisor Moufawak al-Rubaie....

July 2, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — President Bush watched TV replays of Saddam Hussein's arraignment in an Iraqi court and is "pleased" that the deposed dictator is finally facing justice for the atrocities of his regime, the White House said. The war that Bush launched in March 2003 to topple Saddam is a defining event in his presidency, and how voters view it could well decide if he's re-elected. But Bush didn't personally comment on the historic court proceedings or Saddam's claim that Bush is the "real villain." "Justice is being served to Saddam Hussein and his brutal band of...

BAGHDAD (UPI) -- The following are translated excerpts of the transcript of Saddam Hussein's arraignment yesterday in Baghdad:     JUDGE: Name?    SADDAM: Hussein Majid, the president of the Republic of Iraq. ...     JUDGE: Profession? Former president of the Republic of Iraq?    SADDAM: No, present. Current. It's the will of the people. ...    JUDGE: Mr. Saddam, I am the investigative judge of the central court of Iraq.    SADDAM: So that I have to know, you are an investigative judge of the central court of Iraq? What resolution, what law formed this court? ... Oh, the coalition forces? So you are an Iraqi that -- you are...

July 2, 2004 -- A belligerent Saddam Hussein stared down an Iraqi judge yesterday as he scoffed at genocide charges against him, called Kuwaitis "dogs," and declared the "real criminal" is President Bush. In an extraordinary first public appearance since his capture by U.S. forces in a spider hole last December, the 67-year-old ex-Butcher of Baghdad struck a defiant and arrogant tone at his official arraignment — even lecturing the judge on Iraqi law. Stabbing the air and often using mocking words, Saddam ranted that representatives of the Iraqi legal system, who will try him for his war crimes, are...

In the topsy-turvy world of the liberal media, good news is bad news, because good news threatens to bring about the worst news of all from their perspective - the re-election of George W. Bush. So when the good news of Saddam being put on trial broke yesterday, The Today Show resorted to the ultimate ostrich maneuever and flatly failed to cover the event. Taken to task over its omission, there was no way that Today could ignore the 'unfortunate' goings-on in Baghdad this morning. Still, Katie Couric did her earnest best to cast events in the worst possible light...

THE dark suit was borrowed straight from the rack of a Baghdad store, the beard almost entirely grey but a little better trimmed than when he last appeared in public, the white shirt neatly pressed but unadorned by a tie. His jailers had even let him leave his handcuffs outside the court. As Saddam Hussein made his first public appearance yesterday since he emerged blinking into the light from the notorious "spider hole" last December, it was clear that some things had changed. He was a good deal thinner, for a start, and this time he’d had time to comb...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein scoffed at charges of war crimes and mass killings Thursday, making a defiant first public appearance since being hunted down seven months ago. The deposed dictator fixed the judge with a penetrating stare and declared: "This is all a theater by Bush, the criminal." Dressed in a charcoal-colored, pinstriped suit jacket, Saddam - whose day in court was shown on TV in the Arab world and beyond - looked thinner and better groomed than on Dec. 13, the day U.S. troops pulled him from a hole near Tikrit. Unaccompanied by a lawyer, he was...

It's strange how a courtroom shrinks even the biggest villains. Think of Eichmann in Jerusalem, shuffling his mountain of notes and smiling ingratiatingly at his accusers, or Milosevic in The Hague launching another self-righteous harangue. So it was, yesterday, when Saddam Hussein appeared before a judge in Baghdad. The tyrant whose whim determined the fate of millions had been reduced to a shifty little man with bad teeth and dressed in an ill-matching suit. But the banality of the proceedings should not distract us from the significance of the event. The trial of Saddam is of enormous importance, for Iraq...

BAGHDAD — Saddam Hussein, looking thinner after nearly seven months as a U.S. captive, was transferred to Iraqi custody today, reducing him to a criminal defendant in the land he once ruled and launching the painful process of holding him and his top aides accountable for their crimes. The former dictator and 11 of his top lieutenants are no longer prisoners of war but still locked up with U.S. forces as their jailers. On Thursday, the 12 will appear before an Iraqi judge to hear criminal charges likely to include war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. President Ghazi al-Yawer...

BAGHDAD, July 1 (Reuters) - For a moment they were startled into silence. Then instinctive fear gave way to fury among Iraqis in a Baghdad tea lounge as Saddam Hussein appeared on television -- not in a presidential palace but in court. The watchers unleashed a barrage of abuse. "Look -- the pimp is speaking," said janitor Muhammad Ali, one of the Shi'ite majority that was oppressed under the former president, using one of the harshest Iraqi insults. "I heard he used to eat a whole deer during every meal and now he looks much thinner," he added with a...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A defiant Saddam Hussein rejected charges of war crimes and genocide against him in a court appearance Thursday, telling a judge "this is all theater, the real criminal is Bush."

Jul 1, 9:08 AM (ET) BAGHDAD (Reuters) - He arrived handcuffed and in chains at a courtroom in a complex that was once one of his palaces. But although Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and captured, he had not lost his defiance. "I am Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq," he told a hearing where he was read seven charges, according to pool reporters in the courtroom at Camp Victory, a sprawling U.S. base that was previously a lavish hunting estate with a man-made lake. "This is all theater. The real criminal is (U.S. President George W.) Bush," he said. In...

BAGHDAD - Downcast but defiant, Iraq's deposed dictator Saddam Hussein appeared before an Iraqi tribunal on Thursday, refusing to recognize its authority and saying the "real criminal" was President Bush.Saddam, who arrived at the courthouse in handcuffs and chains, was read seven charges under a preliminary arrest warrant and told his rights, pool reporters granted access to the heavily guarded proceedings said. "I am Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq," he repeated. Video footage of the 67-year-old Saddam, looking thinner, haggard and with a mostly gray beard, was broadcast around the world soon after his 30-minute court appearance. He had heavy...

On FOX news now.

AMMAN, Jordan - Jordanian and French attorneys want to visit Saddam Hussein in captivity so they can offer to represent him before an Iraqi war crimes tribunal, the Jordanian lawyer said Monday. Saleh Armouti and French attorney Emmanuel Ludot are asking the U.S. State Department for permission to visit Saddam, who is being held by the American military at an undisclosed location in Iraq after his Dec. 13 capture. "As soon as we get the authorization from the State Department we shall travel to Iraq and meet with Saddam Hussein to get an official empowerment from him," Armouti told The...