Iraqi officials expressed fears that a Pentagon decision to confer prisoner of war status (POW) on Saddam Hussein will prevent them from putting the ousted leader on trial. However, the international Red Cross said POW status does not preclude prosecution.
US officials in Baghdad sought to assure Iraqis that no deal was made to keep them from trying the ousted dictator and that Iraq will have a "substantial leadership role" when the former Iraqi president finally faces justice.
"There is no need for concern by anybody because the ultimate designation [of Saddam's status] will be determined down the road," Dan Senor, a spokesman for the US-led occupation authority, told reporters Saturday.
On Friday, a Pentagon spokesman, Major Michael Shavers, said the Defense Department's top civilian lawyers have determined that Saddam is a POW because of his status as former commander in chief of Iraq's military.
POW status under the Geneva Conventions grants Saddam certain rights, including access to visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross and freedom from coercion of any kind during interrogations.
The Geneva agreements say POWs can be tried for crimes against humanity only by an international tribunal or the occupying power, which in Iraq is the US.
"I am surprised by this decision," said Dara Nor al-Din, a former appeals court judge and member of Iraq's US-backed Governing Council. "We still consider Saddam a criminal and he will be tried on this basis. This new move will be discussed thoroughly in the Governing Council."
Another council member, Mahmoud Othman, said the US had no right to make such a decision.
"The Iraqi people want Saddam to be tried for his crimes in accordance with the Iraqi law. Iraqis want to know the parties which helped Saddam to commit those crimes and to possess weapons of mass destruction," he said.
Iraq's justice minister, Hashim Abdul-Rahman, called the Pentagon comments "mere views" and insisted that Iraqis themselves would determine Saddam's fate.
"It is a political decision, not a legal one," Abdul-Rahman said. "I do not know why it was taken. But the only thing I do know is that Iraqi bodies will decide Saddam's status. We will determine his legal status when the Iraqi authorities take over this issue."
Senor, however, sought to play down the significance of the Pentagon comments.
"It is a confirmation of what the United States government has said all along and that Saddam Hussein will be treated under the Geneva Conventions until determined otherwise," he said.
In Geneva, Ian Piper, a spokesman for the international Red Cross, said handing Saddam over to the Iraqis for trial would not necessarily conflict with the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare, as long as he is granted due process.
It is up to the US, as Iraq's occupier, to determine how Saddam is to be tried, Piper said.
"The status means that he's recognized as a formal combatant and therefore cannot be accused for having waged war," Piper said.
But Piper added that Saddam's POW status "does not give him immunity from accusations of crimes against humanity."
Piper said that national courts have the power to try people who break international war crimes conventions.
"It's supposed to be part of national law, and one would expect the national law to apply at the end of the conflict," he said.
The US has said it wants an Iraqi court to try Saddam, who has been in US custody under CIA interrogation since his capture Dec. 13. But Washington has yet to set the details for a tribunal.
The US says Saddam's government killed at least 300,000 Iraqis, including thousands of Iraqi Kurds in a poison gas attack in 1988.
Saddam's capture brought a sense of relief to many Iraqis who suffered under his 23 years of iron-fisted rule. No Red Cross representatives have yet seen Saddam, whom the US says is held in a safe location. Iraqi officials say he is being held in the Baghdad area.
The US has said that it planned to hand Saddam over to the Iraqis to put him on trial, which was not expected to start before sovereignty was handed back to an Iraqi government by July 1.
On the streets of the Iraqi capital Saturday, some Iraqis speculated that the Americans were trying to deny Iraq the chance to try Saddam for fear he would expose secret contacts between Washington and Baghdad, especially during Iraq's 1980-1988 war against Iran. The West provided Baghdad with arms to prevent an Iranian victory.
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