GENEVA - The Red Cross has visited imprisoned officials of Saddam Hussein's toppled regime and expressed confidence yesterday that U.S. authorities will allow it to see the former Iraqi dictator sooner rather than later.
He's a POW and supposed to be like any POW
said Nada Doumani, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which requested permission to visit Saddam soon after he was captured Dec. 13 and the United States declared him a prisoner of war.
Doumani said the neutral, Swiss-run ICRC had seen most if not all of the 43 other high-ranking Iraqis captured by coalition forces.
We have no problem of access to other people so far she said. As for Saddam Hussein, she added, We believe that we will be able to see him sooner rather than later.
She said the visit to Saddam should happen fairly automatically because the ICRC, which is entitled to see POWs under the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war, so far has had access to all coalition locations for holding POWs and civilian internees.
The agency still doesn't know where Saddam is being held and will know for sure only when its delegates have seen him, Doumani said.
The Americans are saying that he's somewhere in Iraq as far as I understand
but we cannot confirm that or deny it
Doumani said.
The ICRC moved many of its international staff out of Iraq following the Oct. 27 bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters. But it has representatives who continue to visit Iraqi detainees, whether they are ordinary soldiers or among the 55 most wanted whose faces appear in a deck of cards issued by U.S. authorities. The coalition said it has captured 44 of the 55.
I cannot tell you by name whom we have seen and whom we haven't and if we have skipped somebody
Doumani said.
She said there is nothing in the Geneva Conventions that would prohibit Saddam's being tried by a coalition tribunal.
It can also be by an ad hoc international tribunal that can be established by a resolution of the Security Council
she said.
We could envision that it could happen (that the Iraqis try Saddam) once authority is transferred to the Iraqis in June and military tribunals are established again
Doumani said.
But the ICRC does not get into who conducts the trial as long as it is a military tribunal of a sovereign country that is party to the Geneva Conventions. Iraq joined the conventions in 1956, but it has been suspended while under coalition control.
The trial can be for what a POW did before the latest war, including other war crimes or crimes against humanity
but not for what he has done during the latest war for being a soldier
she said.
She said there was some misconception about Saddam's rights after he was declared a POW.
Some people
especially in Iraq
