Saddam morale low

[THE KOD]

Iraq Judge: Saddam's Morale 'Collapsing'
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq ? Saddam Hussein's morale has plummeted due to the gravity of the war crimes charges he faces, according to comments published Saturday from the chief investigating judge trying the former Iraqi president.

Raid Juhi, head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal set up to try Saddam, also said the ousted president and some of the 11 other detained former regime figures are facing "12 cases" that carry punishments from life in jail to the death penalty.

"The ousted president has suffered a collapse in his morale because he understands the extent of the charges against him and because he's certain that he will stand tribal before an impartial court," Juhi told the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper in an interview published Saturday.

Saddam, who is being held in a U.S.-run detention facility in Baghdad, was captured in December 2003 and faces charges including killing rival politicians during his 30-year rule, gassing Kurds, invading Kuwait and suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991.

No date has been set for the start of Saddam's trial, but Juhi reiterated comments made last week by President Jalal Talabani to CNN that the former dictator was expected to face the tribunal within two months. Juhi said Saddam will be tried alone in some case and alongside other detainees in other cases.

Saddam's lawyer, Khalil al-Duleimi, rejected Juhi's comments, telling The Associated Press that his client was in high spirits and that he was not aware of the 12 cases the judge referred to.

"The last time I met Saddam was in late April and his spirits were very high," al-Duleimi said.
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I wonder if we will be able to watch this on
Court TV.

I do have a soft spot for the butcher of Bahgdad.

 

[THE KOD]

U.S. finds bunkers used by Iraqi insurgents

By EDWARD WONG
New York Times
Published on: 06/05/05
Baghdad, Iraq ? American Marines have discovered an elaborate series of underground bunkers used recently by insurgents in central Iraq, with heavy weapons, a kitchen and fresh food, furnished living quarters, showers and even an air conditioner, the military said Saturday.

The bunkers were built into an old rock quarry north of the town of Karma, an insurgent stronghold in Anbar province that lies near the city of Fallujah. The bunker system measures 546 feet by 883 feet, making it the largest underground insurgent hide-out to be discovered in at least the past year, if not during the entire war, said Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division, charged with controlling western Iraq.

The military said the bunkers were discovered Thursday, around 5 p.m., as part of anti-insurgency operations in Anbar, which stretches to Iraq's western border and is a center of the Sunni Arab resistance. In the past three days, troops with the 2nd Marine Division found more than 50 caches of weapons and ammunition in the province. Twelve were discovered in the immediate area of the rock quarry, Pool said in an e-mail interview.

"Marines were out patrolling and looking for weapons caches, when out in the middle of the desert they see a lone building," he said. "They went to go and check it out. In one room there was a large, chest-style electric freezer. The Marines moved it and found the hidden entrance to the underground quarry system."

"I can tell you that it is the largest underground system discovered in at least the last year," the captain added.

Near the building, Marines also found evidence of a rifle-training range, including casings from spent 7.62-millimeter rounds, the kind used in the insurgents' favored Kalashnikov rifles.

No one was in the bunkers at the time of the raid, Pool said. But the fresh food in the kitchen indicated that insurgents had been there recently. The underground lair had been in use for some time, he said, and was built from one subsection of the quarry.

In one section of the hide-out, troops discovered machine guns, mortars, rockets, artillery rounds, black uniforms, ski masks, compasses, log books, a video camera, night-vision goggles and fully charged satellite phones, the military said in its written statement.

The insurgents had apparently installed the creature comforts of home within the hide-out. The complex included four fully furnished living spaces, two showers and an air-conditioner, the military said. Temperatures in the deserts of Anbar Province can approach a scorching 130 degrees in the summertime.

Decades ago, Saddam Hussein and his aides began building an extensive series of underground bunkers scattered around Iraq. Saddam hired German engineers in the 1980s to work on these lairs, which included tunnels and chambers beneath palaces in Baghdad and Mosul. It is not known, however, whether the quarry bunker is part of that network.

When U.N. weapons inspectors scoured Iraq in the months before the American invasion, they thoroughly searched many of these bunkers, but came up with nothing.

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