Saddam is said to believe U.S. may spare him

AMMAN, Jordan — Saddam Hussein has no illusions, his chief lawyer says. As he sits in his prison cell reading the Quran and writing poetry, Saddam knows the inevitable is coming: a death sentence handed down by the Iraqi court trying him in connection with crimes against humanity.

"Saddam Hussein is convinced of this," said the lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi. "He's told us ... if there's an even greater punishment than the death sentence, he'll get it."

Yet Saddam believes there is a way out, al-Dulaimi said.

According to Saddam's logic, President Bush will use the court's sentence as leverage to try to persuade him to tamp down the insurgency, so desperate are the Americans to stanch their losses. Saddam believes the Americans might even reinstall him as president of Iraq, his lawyer said.

"He'll be the last resort; they'll knock on his door," al-Dulaimi said. "The United States will use this sentence to pressure Saddam to save it from its mess."

Such are the thoughts that appear to be meandering through the mind of Saddam, 69, as his first trial nears its end.

Though the idea of salvation may seem like the latest in a long line of delusions that have helped land Saddam where he is today, al-Dulaimi asserts it is the Americans who are beginning to wake up from a dream world, realizing their invasion has delivered Iraq into the hands of conservative Shiites in both Iraq and Iran.

"The Iranian influence is a threat to American interests," Dulaimi said. "The only person standing in the face of Iran, which is an enemy of America, is Saddam Hussein."

Since October, Saddam and seven co-defendants have been standing trial for the imprisonment and executions of 148 men and boys from the Shiite village of Dujail following what Saddam said was an assassination attempt on him there in 1982.

Lawyers for each side are making closing arguments, but the trial continues to be wracked by violence, raising questions about whether justice can be delivered in the middle of a war zone.

The latest convulsions occurred Wednesday, when a lead defense lawyer, Khamis al-Obeidi, was abducted from his home in Baghdad, beaten and murdered.

Al-Obeidi was the third defense lawyer to be killed since the trial started. Some witnesses said Shiite militiamen carted al-Obeidi, a Sunni Arab, through the streets of a vast Shiite slum in eastern Baghdad before killing him.

Al-Dulaimi, 44, also a Sunni Arab, spoke in a private home here in the Jordanian capital, where he spends most of his time. He leads a team of a dozen that includes a Lebanese woman and a prominent American.

Al-Dulaimi accused the Iraqi court of refusing to give adequate protection for the lawyers and others and perhaps even directly aiding the Shiite militias.

"They hate Saddam and the Baath Party," he said of the judges.

U.S. officials say that the leading defense lawyers have been offered safe accommodations in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, or, as an alternative, 24-hour protection by Interior Ministry bodyguards.

But al-Dulaimi said the lack of security had forced him to move to Amman and to fly into Baghdad only for trial sessions. Even then, he will stay only in the Green Zone, where the courthouse is located.

His wife and seven children move from house to house in the provincial capital of Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold. Al-Dulaimi is from the largest tribe in that province and studied law at the university in Ramadi.

Some U.S. officials strongly suspect that members of Saddam's Baath Party may have played a role in the trial assassinations, with the aim of discrediting the court. Judges on the court bristle at any suggestion that they have failed to meet the needs of the defense lawyers, much less collude with militias to have the lawyers killed.

Raid Juhi, the chief investigative judge, said the court had offered al-Obeidi, the slain lawyer, the protection of policemen, but that al-Obeidi had refused because he distrusted the Shiite-run Interior Ministry. The court paid al-Obeidi to hire his own bodyguards.

Al-Dulaimi said he had never met Saddam before taking the case and had never received any favors from the former president.

A criminal lawyer since 1992, he said he had approached the imprisoned Saddam out of a desire to defend the legitimate ruler of Iraq and expose the sham of the U.S. occupation.

He contended Saddam had no money to pay his lawyers, though it is well known that Saddam 's daughters in Amman have supported the lawyers.

Al-Dulaimi said lawyers may try to convince the court that the prosecutors have wrongfully accused Saddam of nearly a third of the 148 deaths — 45 of the people are still alive or died under other circumstances, he said.

As for the others? Saddam did order their executions, and had every right to do so, he said.

"They deserved to die, according to Iraqi law," al-Dulaimi said. "They were part of an illegal organization, plotting to kill a president."