BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi legislators changed the rules for the forthcoming trial of Saddam Hussein, preventing the deposed president from representing himself, according to documents provided to the Los Angeles Times.

Under the original rules for the trial, adopted in December 2003 when U.S. officials were running the country, Saddam was permitted "to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing."

But under revised rules, adopted by the Iraqi National Assembly on Aug. 11, Saddam only has the right "to procure legal counsel of his choosing." The same change applies to other defendants whose special trials, along with Saddam's, are scheduled to begin in mid-October.

The new rules may alleviate the widespread concern among Iraqi and U.S. officials that Saddam could use his right of self-representation to grandstand and spout propaganda.

The National Assembly's dominant Shiite Muslim bloc pushed through the revised statute quietly, avoiding debate on a controversial provision that would bar the tribunal from including judges who had belonged to Saddam's Sunni-dominated Baath party.

Nineteen judges on the tribunal are said to have been Baathists, though not leaders of the former ruling party. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, recently thwarted an effort to purge those justices from the court, but Shiite legislators wanted a legal basis to do so in the future.

Judge to allow England admission

FORT HOOD, Texas — A military judge reversed himself yesterday and decided to let prosecutors use a statement Army Pfc. Lynndie England gave to investigators implicating herself in the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

England's court-martial trial on seven counts of conspiracy and prisoner abuse will begin today with jury selection and opening statements. The 22-year-old reservist from rural West Virginia, who is shown in a number of graphic photos taken by Abu Ghraib guards in 2003, faces up to 11 years in a military prison if convicted.

The judge presiding over England's case, Col. James Pohl, ruled in July that neither of two statements England made in January 2004, when she implicated herself in the abuse, would be admissible. He said he believed she did not fully understand the consequences when she waived her rights against self-incrimination.

Yesterday, however, the judge said he thinks England knew what she was doing when she signed a waiver before making the second statement. Her first statement remains inadmissible.

In May, England made a plea agreement that eventually fell apart, but this time "there's not going to be a deal," said Capt. Jonathan Crisp, her lead defense lawyer.

Crisp said he plans to base much of his defense on England's history of mental-health problems that date to early childhood. He said he also will focus on the influence exerted over her by Pvt. Charles Graner, the reputed ringleader of the abuse. Graner, who England has said fathered her son, was convicted in January and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Pohl threw out her earlier plea deal and declared a mistrial because Graner's testimony contradicted England's guilty plea.

Saudi diplomat calls U.S. policy divisive

NEW YORK — U.S. policy in Iraq is widening sectarian divisions to the point of effectively handing the country to Iran, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal yesterday told the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. "You talk now about Sunnis as if they were separate entity from the Shiite," he said.

He urged the United States, which is battling a Sunni Arab insurgency against occupying U.S. forces and backs the Kurdish- and Shiite-led Iraqi government, to work "to bring these people together."

A civil war would bring in Iran because of its interest in the Shiite-dominated south, the Turks because of their concern about an autonomous Kurdish movement surfacing in the north and Arab nations in the region.

Also

A former government contractor was charged with fraud yesterday for handing out top access ID badges in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone to an Iraqi girlfriend and others not entitled to have them. Thomas Barnes III, 48, of Fort Worth, Texas, a former employee of contractor DynCorp, was arrested yesterday at Dulles International Airport. DynCorp administers the badge program under a $7.7 million military contract.

Compiled from The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Reuters