Saddam’s second trial

Baghdad

Saddam Hussein defiantly refused to enter a plea this week as he again went on trial, this time on charges of genocide stemming from his regime’s attacks against the Kurds in the late 1980s. The scorched-earth campaign, which lasted eight months and involved artillery and chemical weapons, killed an estimated 50,000 Kurds. The notorious poison-gas attack on Halabja, though, is not part of the case; it is the subject of a separate investigation. During this week’s proceedings, Saddam initially refused to give the court his name, saying all Iraqis knew who he was. But then he relented and identified himself as “the president of the Republic of Iraq and commander in chief of the heroic Iraqi armed forces.” A verdict has not yet been issued in Saddam’s first trial, which charged him with ordering a massacre in 1982 that left 148 Shiites dead.

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