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Iraq

From testimony to tirade

BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein, testifying Wednesday for the first time in his trial, called on Iraqis to stop killing each other and instead fight U.S. troops. The judge reprimanded him for making a rambling, political speech and ordered the TV cameras switched off.

Hussein began his speech by declaring he was the elected president, touching off a shouting match with Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman.

"You used to be a head of state. You are a defendant now," Abdel-Rahman told him.

Hussein, dressed in a black suit and wearing large glasses, repeatedly brushed off the judge's demands that he address the charges against him - the killing of 148 Shiites and the imprisonment and torture of others during a crackdown in the 1980s.

Instead, he read from a prepared text, addressing the "great Iraqi people" - a phrase he often used in his presidential speeches - and said he was "pained" by the recent wave of Sunni-Shiite violence.

"Let the people unite and resist the invaders and their backers. Don't fight among yourselves," he said, praising the insurgency.

"In your resistance to the invasion by the Americans and Zionists and their allies, you were great. You were great in my eyes and you remain so. . . . It's only a matter of time until the sun rises and you'll be victorious," he said.

Abdel-Rahman shouted at him again and closed the session for 90 minutes, ordering journalists out of the room and the delayed broadcast cut while Hussein finished reading his speech.

Prosecutors will have another chance to try to question Hussein on the charges when the trial reconvenes April 5.

But in Wednesday's session, Hussein sought to project the image of a man still in power addressing his people in troubled times, even as Abdel-Rahman repeatedly stabbed a button on his desk to shut off Hussein's microphone.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who is a member of Hussein's defense team, told CNN the speech explained the context of the time period in which the Dujail events took place, arguing the legality of the government actions while Iraq was at war with Iran.

Also Wednesday, a U.S. air strike north of the capital killed 11 people - most of them women and children, said police and relatives of the victims. The U.S. military said it captured the target of the raid, a man suspected of supporting al-Qaida fighters.

But the military said only four people were killed - a man, two women and a child.

The U.S. military dispatched a battalion of soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division - about 700 troops - to Iraq from its base in Kuwait to provide extra security for Shiite holy cities as tens of thousands of pilgrims converged for a major religious commemoration that came under attack in the two previous years.

[Last modified March 16, 2006, 02:15:15]