Iraqis watch Saddam’s trial with mix of rage, pride

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The moment Saddam Hussein appeared, a Shiite housewife spat on the screen and then sat gnawing her fingers, seething, as her family crowded around the television. When the judge addressed the ousted dictator as “Mr. Saddam,” she burst: “The beast Saddam, you mean!”

Across the Tigris River in the mostly Sunni Arab district of Azamiyah, some Iraqis were also riveted to their sets. Namir Sharif, a 46-year-old former army officer, was on the verge of tears of pride as a defiant Saddam argued with the judge.

“He turned the trial upside down, this is a heroic act,” Sharif said.

Some Iraqis watched with visceral hatred or fear, some with joy, others with bitterness or even nostalgia. But above all they watched enthralled, unable to remove their eyes from the image of their once all-powerful leader reduced to a defendant on trial Wednesday.

Nowhere was the contrast in reaction more stark than between Azamiyah and the Shiite district of Kazimiyah, just on the other side of the river.

One thing united them: Baghdad’s fragile power grid, always rickety but even worse since a major insurgent attack Friday knocked out almost the entire system. Workers were still trying to get it back up to speed, and power blinked in and out several times in the two neighborhoods while the trial was being televised.

Shiite housewife Sabiha Hassan’s entire family leaped up and rushed to their private generator when the screen went dead half an hour into the trial. “Thank God, I brought extra fuel today just for the occasion,” said her husband, Salman Zaboun Shanan, as he filled the generator’s tank.

Otherwise, the couple and their two sons didn’t move from the concrete floor where they sat within a yard of the screen for the length of the three-hour session. Shanan, a construction worker, stayed home from work to watch. One son, Hadi, a cleric, missed a seminary exam.

Hassan’s brother was executed by Saddam’s regime, and she, her husband and five of their sons spent time in Saddam’s prisons. They kept up a running commentary on the trial. “May God break his legs to pieces,” Hassan, in a black robe and veil, said when Saddam stood at one point.

“Iraq’s soil has its pride. It won’t accept Saddam’s body once they execute him. I hope they throw his body to the dogs, not bury it,” said Shanan, slapping his fist into his palm nervously.

Their family had suffered under Saddam because of its links to the Shiite Muslim seminary in Najaf, south of Baghdad, which the then-ruling Baath Party viewed with deep suspicion. Hassan’s executed brother was an aide to a Najaf-based ayatollah killed by security forces in 1999. When prison officials refused to hand over her brother’s body for burial, Hassan’s family bribed them to get it out – and when discovered, they were declared threats to national security and jailed.

Such stories are prevalent in every Shiite neighborhood.

In Kazimiyah, the streets were nearly empty as most residents stayed in to watch.

In the few shops that were open, men stared at TVs. One shop-owner, gaping at the screen, waved away a customer, his eyes never moving. A television repair shop had four sets, stacked on top of each other, each tuned to a different station, each showing the trial.

Feelings in Azamiyah were more complicated. Sunni Arabs dominated the government during Saddam’s 23-year rule, but many Sunnis suffered as well, or at least remember the climate of fear. Still, seeing a man once lauded as an Arab hero facing a Kurdish chief judge and a Shiite prosecutor – whose slight Iranian accent in Arabic was noted – reminded them of what many feel is their new status: a discriminated minority under a government led by Shiites and Kurds.

“Saddam is the lesser of evils,” engineer Sahab Awad Maaruf said. “He’s the only legitimate leader for Iraqis.”

Sharif, the former army officer, shouted at his eldest son to switch on the generator when the picture went black just as Saddam was standing before the court, rejecting the accusations.

“He’s directing a message to the Iraqis, that I am still here and ready to lead you again,” said Sharif’s wife, Laila Zubair.

Um Abdullah, a 40-year-old woman, couldn’t keep watching the trial and went out grocery shopping because “I had chills” being reminded of Saddam’s era.

Still, “it hurt me a lot seeing the strongest leader inside a cage. I was thrilled when he showed those agents that he is still Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president,” she said.

Not everyone was impressed. Sunni Arab Mahmoud Fuad, 34, called Saddam an “arrogant dictator” and said he shouldn’t have been tried alongside seven other former officials. “They should have put Saddam in a cage, alone, because he is getting his strength from seeing his loyalists,” he said.

Security was tight in Azamiyah for fear of violence by Sunni Arabs angered over the trial. The army deployed in front of the main mosque, and streets were dotted with checkpoints, where people were asked for IDs and cars were searched. But more people were out, shopping, waiting in line for gas – happier not to watch.

In northern Iraq, Kurds also were captivated by the trial, which focused on a massacre Saddam is accused of ordering against a Shiite village. Many Kurds were eager for cases of atrocities against their community come to trial, particularly the Anfal campaign of the late 1980s when Saddam’s military razed Kurdish villages and killed some 180,000 people.

Zainab Wali’s husband and two sons were among the “Anfal-ed,” the slang term used for the many who disappeared and whose bodies were never found.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, the 46-year-old woman brought out her cooking utensils to the living room so she could watch alongside her daughter while chopping up ingredients for stuffed cabbage.

When Saddam appeared on the screen, she whooped with joy and started laughing.

“Today I feel that my husband and brothers have come back. I feel like my own brother is judging Saddam since the judge is Kurdish,” Wali said.