To: Ichy Smith who wrote (3722 ) 12/30/2006 4:01:27 PM From: lorne Respond to of 20106 Ichy....Saddam is now guilty of killing Shiites, but not Kurds, or Sunnis. The proper situation was to try him for all the crimes, and then execute him, IMO and then he would have been guilty of all of his crimes. I wonder what the Shiites were trying to hide in their rush to execute him. ".... Video evidence of gassing shown in Saddam trial Dec.19,2006 By BUSHRA JUHI AND JAMAL HALABYcnews.canoe.ca BAGHDAD (AP) - A court saw chilling videos of gassed children lying in a field and villagers fleeing clouds of white smoke as prosecutors argued Tuesday that Saddam Hussein and his regime had used chemical weapons to kill the Kurds of northern Iraq in the late 1980s. The defence for Saddam and six co-defendants says the 1987-88 military offensive, code-named Operation Anfal, only targeted Kurdish insurgents. Saddam and the six former members of his regime have pleaded innocent to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in the operation, in which an estimated 180,000 Kurds have been killed. "These children are the saboteurs that the defendants talk about," prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said sarcastically as the footage showed scores of dead children on the ground, partially covered by blankets. Saddam and one defendant have pleaded innocent to the additional charge of genocide. "This is the result of the chemical attacks," the prosecutor shouted in the courtroom, referring to the dead children. Al-Faroon did not reveal the source of the grainy videos with distorted sound. A timecode under the images showed the clips were at various times in 1987 and 1988. One video showed a thick white smoke cloud that emerged after a loud explosion as warplanes bombed a green mountainous region. The camera then showed villagers fleeing with their donkeys as houses in the background went up in flame. Another clip showed women, men and children moaning as they sat under a tree and watched dead bodies - mostly of children - being loaded onto a small truck. "These images are meant to show the court all the aspects of Saddam's military offensive," al-Faroon said. "They include video clips of the chemical attacks, families escaping, warplanes bombing their villages and the camps were they were held in." Saddam watched silently, showing no emotions. But his cousin and co-defendant, Ali al-Majid - who is also known as Chemical Ali for his alleged use of chemical weapons during the Anfal offensive - said the video clips were "painful." "Those who were shown in the video were in restricted areas, which were not under government control. They insisted to stay with the enemy," he added, referring to Iran, which had allegedly supported Kurdish rebels against Saddam's regime. If Saddam and the other defendants are convicted, all seven could be condemned to death. Saddam has already been convicted and sentenced to death for the killing of nearly 150 people in the town of Dujail after a 1982 attempt to assassinate him. His lawyers have appealed that trial's verdict and sentence, and the appeals court is expected to rule next month. Iraqi officials have suggested that Saddam's prosecution on genocide charges would be halted if the appeals court upholds the death sentence of the first trial. Al-Faroon, the prosecutor, also showed the court at least two dozen documents he said implicated Saddam in the chemical attacks. One memo claimed that a Dutch businessman identified as Frans Van Anraat provided Saddam with chemical material. It said the man assumed the Arabic name of Faris Mansour following his marriage to a Palestinian Muslim resident of Iraq. The April 20, 1992, document sent by special security to Saddam's presidential office states that the Dutchman was given an Iraqi passport as a reward for his "valuable services," providing "our institutions and the military industry with chemical and other rare materials." The letter claimed the Dutchman was briefly detained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, but later managed to flee to Iraq. It did not reveal more details on his arrest. In 2005, a Dutch court sentenced van Anraat to 15 years prison for war crimes because of the chemicals he sold to Saddam's regime. Another document from 1988 showed the signature of one of the ex-president's co-defendants - former defence minister Sultan Al-Tai - endorsing an attack on a Kurdish village using what the prosecutor said was "special ammunition," a reference to chemical gas. A separate memo signed by Sabir al-Douri, Saddam's military intelligence chief, showed that he was also informed of the chemical attacks, contrary to his and Saddam's arguments Monday claiming the intelligence chief was innocent. Al-Douri allegedly wrote to Saddam's office about "special weapons" used in attacks on Kurds - which the prosecutor said was another term used to describe chemical attacks, according to the memo.