Saddam wants new shoes

2005-12-13 14:13

Baghdad - Two years after being pulled from a "rat hole" in Iraq, former strongman Saddam Hussein is demanding clean clothes and new shoes, while his countrymen focus on this week's crucial election.

"I am Saddam Hussein, I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate," were his first words on December 13 2003 when US special forces pulled the dictator from a cramped underground space in Ad Dawr, near his hometown Tikrit.

Saddam narrowly escaped sharing the cache with live grenades according to US Colonel James Hickey, who told reporters at the time: "He was wise not to wait too long.

"Two hands appeared and the individual clearly wanted to surrender."

A bearded and bewildered Saddam, once one of the most feared leaders in the Middle East, was later shown on a video having his teeth examined and hair checked for lice, looking a picture of total defeat.

Since then, the 68-year-old Saddam has recovered some of his bravado, and his trial in the capital's fortress-like Green Zone has witnessed several outbursts, the latest on December 6 when he told the court to "go to hell".

"Our clothes are dirty. We cannot wash, nor smoke," Saddam complained.

But according to one of his lawyers, the Qatari Najib al-Nuaimi, Saddam will at least be sporting a new pair of shoes when the trial resumes on December 21, something he has been demanding for two years.

"The defence team asked for improved detention conditions... which have, in principle, been accepted," Nuaimi told AFP in Doha.

The lawyer said Saddam needed the 14th century Arab sociological classic Al-Mukadima (The Introduction) by Tunisian academic bin Khaldun, and a new pair of shoes.

Saddam "asked only for Al-Mukadima by bin Khaldun, and new shoes because he has been wearing the same pair since his arrest two years ago."

The ousted dictator still looms large as 15.5 million Iraqis are to vote on Thursday in a landmark legislative election to select 275 deputies for a full four-year term.

It is the third stage in an electoral process that installed a transitional national assembly following a poll on January 30 and approved a new Iraqi constitution on October 15.

If Saddam were ever released from jail - unlikely since he is liable to be hanged for crimes against humanity - he would find himself in a starkly different political landscape dominated by Iraqi Shi'ites and Kurds who his regime had relentlessly persecuted.

Nuaimi told AFP that Saddam would rather face a firing squad, "as supreme commander of the Iraqi armed forces" if he is sentenced to death for the murder of 148 Shi'ite villagers following an attempt on his life in July 1982.

That almost occurred two years ago, when Hickey said: "We were prepared to have a fight... and use overwhelming power."

Saddam nonetheless survived and is now playing an indirect role in the election campaign, though he is not expected to cast a ballot.

Rivals of former prime minister Ilyad Allawi, who is running for a seat in parliament and possibly higher office, have printed posters that assimilate his ambition with that of the fallen dictator.

One portrait superimposes Allawi's face with Saddam's above the question: "Who does this man remind you of?"

- AFP