DEBKAfile Reports: Saddam Hussein’s opening trial Wednesday Oct. 19 produced two surprises: the appointment of a Kurd to head the special tribunal and its location at government center in Baghdad’s Green Zone

October 19, 2005, 1:48 PM (GMT+02:00)

Both are highly significant, according to DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources in Baghdad. Kurdish leaders hitherto declined any involvement in the legal proceedings against the deposed dictator. President Jalal Talabani in particular announced he would not be the first Iraqi president to sign Saddam Hussein’s death warrant, should he be sentenced to hanging.

The ex-ruler faces 12 trials for crimes against humanity, genocide and other offenses. The Kurds feared their involvement in his sentencing would provoke a Sunni Arab blood feud against the Kurdish people for generations to come. The appointment of Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd from Suleimaniya, as lead judge of the five-member tribunal, marked a change of attitude on the part of Talabani.

He was no doubt influenced by the dramatic decline in Saddam Hussein’s personal importance. After two years in solitary confinement, the former dictator looks like yesterday’s man – even to Sunni Arabs. His relevance to Iraq’s power politics and the country’s present and future, is reduced making him a mere symbol of days gone by when the Sunni Baathists ruled Iraq.

His transfer from the maximum security prison at Baghdad’s international airport to the old Baath headquarters in the fortified government seat known as the Green Zone was a calculated propaganda gamble. Although the trial date was public knowledge and the distance traveled by the dictator and his seven co-defendants 12 miles, neither the Baath insurgents nor al Qaeda’s terrorists were able to derail the process.

The two mortar shells fired at the Green Zone on the morning of the trial will likely be followed with additional attacks; some may be more audacious. Iraqi guerrillas and Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s terrorists have proved their ability in the past to penetrate Green Zone defenses for intelligence-gathering or even suicide attacks.

The timely publication of results of the referendum on the new Iraqi constitution held four days ago would have given the court process against the former dictator an important boost. But this has been delayed by charges of fraud in the Kurdish and Shiite provinces, where the number of ‘yeses’ appears improbably high. Now, even if the charter turns out to have been approved by a majority of the 15.5 million registered votes, a cloud will hang over the true will of the Iraqi people. This doubt, coupled with ongoing insurgent violence and the sensational Saddam trial, leaves the Bush administration with grave uncertainties about how to proceed in Iraq. None of the steps taken for promoting democracy have had the desired effect of bringing the country closer to the stability needed for the United States to set a timeline for the exit of US troops.