Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein admitted on Wednesday that he ordered the trial of Shiite villagers who were executed, and decreed the destruction of their farmlands, following an assassination attempt against him in the town of Dujail in 1982.
Saddam insisted his actions as the then Iraqi president did not constitute a crime, but it was the first time he had acknowledged a direct personal link to the events in Dujail.
"It is the first time that the defendant has appeared to recognize that he needs to engage and defend himself, instead of shouting slogans," said one legal source close to the special court, describing the development as "significant."
The intervention came as the chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, was about to wrap up the day's session. A largely subdued Saddam, in court for a second consecutive day, asked permission to speak. "Where is the crime?" Saddam said during a 15-minute address.
"Is referring a defendant who opened fire at a head of state, no matter what his name is, a crime?" he said.
Saddam and seven co-defendants are accused of crimes against humanity, involving the arrest, torture and execution of Shiite residents from Dujail. After an attack on his convoy as it passed through the mainly Shiite town on July 8 1982, the then president also seized and flattened local farms.
"I razed them," Saddam admitted yesterday. "We specified the farmland of those who were convicted and I signed it because the incident happened against me."
Saddam also called for the release of his co-defendants saying that they were merely obeying his orders.
"A head of state is here. Try him and let the others go their way," he said. Proceedings were adjourned until March 12.
In Washington the Bush administration came under fire on Wednesday for ignoring warnings from US intelligence agencies as far back as three years ago that the insurgency was deep-rooted, resilient and could lead to civil war.
Wayne White, who coordinated Iraq intelligence for the state department until last year, said he helped put together a National Intelligence Estimate in 2003 warning that "prospects for tamping down the insurgency were unexpectedly grim."
White wrote that "the senior official chairing the meeting looked around at his fellow intelligence analysts and exclaimed rhetorically, `How can I take this upstairs?' to then-CIA director George Tenet. He argued the resistance to bad news in the White House led to the temptation among subordinates within the intelligence community to engage in self-censorship."
A series of bomb attacks in Baghdad killed at least 26 civilians, and four people died when mortar rounds slammed into their homes in the capital and a nearby town on Wednesday. Shoppers at a market in a mainly Shiite neighborhood in south-east Baghdad were hit by a car bomb that killed at least 23 people. Earlier a police convoy was the target of a bomb hidden under a car. The police were unharmed but three civilians died and 15 were injured.
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