[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 19127-19130]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    SADDAM HUSSEIN AS A WAR CRIMINAL

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN EDWARD PORTER

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 21, 2000

  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, September 19, 2000, the 
Congressional Human Rights Caucus (CHRC) held a briefing on building 
the case against Saddam Hussein as a war criminal. This week our 
Administration urged the United Nations to establish a war crimes 
tribunal to try Saddam Hussein and eleven other Iraqi officials in the 
deaths of up to 250,000 civilians in Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and elsewhere. 
David Scheffer, the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, 
testified before the CHRC on September 19th. His remarks present the 
evidence which has been gathered by the U.S. against Hussein. This 
evidence includes crimes committed during the Iran-Iraq War, the 
massive use of chemical weapons in Halabja against his own citizens in 
1988, the invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990 and 1991 and the 
killing of his political opponents which continues today.
  Ambassador Scheffer's remarks are a thorough account of the 
horrendous crimes Saddam Hussein has committed and continues to commit, 
and what the U.S. is doing to promote justice in Iraq. I commend to 
Members' attention Ambassador Scheffer's remarks and hope that the U.S. 
Congress will strongly support the Administration's effort to bring 
Hussein to justice.

                      The Case for Justice in Iraq

   (By David J. Scheffer, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues)

       Thank you. It is good to be among so many groups and 
     individuals who are dedicated to the pursuit of justice, 
     democracy and the rule of law for the Iraqi people. I am here 
     to tell you all that the United States looks forward to the 
     day when justice, democracy and the rule of law will prevail 
     in Iraq.
       I want to do three things this morning, by way of starting 
     us all on a series of interesting presentations on different 
     aspects of the case for justice in Iraq. First, I want to 
     call to everyone's attention the reason we are here--the need 
     to address the continuing criminality of Saddam Hussein's 
     regime. Second, it has been almost a year since I saw many of 
     you here in Washington last October, when I spoke at the 
     Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the subject of 
     Iraqi war crimes, or at the Iraqi National Assembly in New 
     York shortly thereafter. I want to update you on what the 
     U.S. Government has been doing to promote accountability for 
     Saddam Hussein's 20 years of criminal conduct. Third, I think 
     you will find of interest some of the reaction, in Baghdad 
     and elsewhere, to what we--and many of you--have been doing 
     to promote the cause of justice in Iraq.
       Let me be clear at the outset. Our primary objective is to 
     see Saddam Hussein and the leadership of the Iraqi regime 
     indicted and prosecuted by an international criminal 
     tribunal. If an international criminal tribunal or even a 
     commission of experts proves too difficult to achieve 
     politically, there still may be opportunities in the national 
     courts of certain jurisdictions to investigate and indict the 
     leadership of the Iraqi regime. The United States is 
     committed to pursuing justice and accountability in the 
     former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Sierra Leone and 
     elsewhere around the world. We are also committed to the 
     pursuit of justice and accountability for the victims of 
     Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.


          The Criminal Record of the Regime of Saddam Hussein

       Let me turn to my first main point, the need to address the 
     criminal record of Saddam Hussein and his top associates for 
     their crimes against the peoples of Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and 
     other countries. To the United States Government, it is 
     beyond any possible doubt that Saddam Hussein and the top 
     leadership around him have brutally and systematically 
     committed war crimes and crimes against humanity for years, 
     are committing them now, and will continue committing them 
     until the international community finally says enough--or 
     until the forces of change in Iraq prevail against his regime 
     as, ultimately, they must.
       This may seem self-evident to all of you here today. 
     Interestingly, in my discussions of this issue I have found 
     some people who will agree that Saddam Hussein is a criminal, 
     but who are genuinely unaware of the magnitude of his 
     criminal conduct. Those who want to gloss over Saddam's 
     criminal record often want to gloss over the need for him to 
     be brought to justice. This goes the very heart of why his 
     conduct deserves an international response, so I find it 
     useful to review what we now know of the criminal record of 
     Saddam Hussein and his top associates.
       1. The Iran-Iraq War. During the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam 
     Hussein and his forces used chemical weapons against Iran. 
     According to official Iranian sources, which we consider 
     credible, approximately 5,000 Iranians were killed by 
     chemical weapons between 1983 and 1988. The use of chemical 
     weapons has been a war crime since the 1925 Geneva Protocol 
     on poisonous gas, to which Iraq is a party. Also during the 
     Iran-Iraq War, there are credible reports that Iraqi forces 
     killed several thousand Iranian prisoners of war, which is 
     also a war crime as well as a grave breach of the Geneva 
     Conventions of 1949, to which Iraq is a party. Other war 
     crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Saddam 
     Hussein and the top leaders around him against Iran and the 
     Iranian people also deserve international investigation.
       2. Halabja. In mid-March of 1988, Saddam Hussein and his 
     cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid--the infamous ``Chemical Ali''--
     ordered the dropping of chemical weapons on the town of 
     Halabja in northeastem Iraq. This killed an estimated 5,000 
     civilians, and is a war crime and a crime against humanity. 
     Photographic and videotape evidence of this attack and its 
     aftermath exists. Some of this is available to scholars and--
     God willing--to prosecutors through the efforts of the 
     International Monitor Institute in Los Angeles, California. 
     More visual evidence is available from Iranian cameramen, who 
     collected their images of the victims of this brutal attack--
     most of whom were women and children--in a book published in 
     Tehran. The best evidence of all is from the survivors in 
     Halabja itself.
       I am proud to say that the United States has been working 
     with groups such as the Washington Kurdish Institute and 
     scientists like Dr. Christine Gosden to document the 
     suffering of the people of Halabja and--just as importantly--
     to find ways to help the people of Halabja treat the victims 
     and bring hope to the living. Working with local authorities, 
     we are looking for ways to help investigators, doctors and 
     scientists document this crime and plan the help that the 
     survivors need and deserve. We know they will not get that 
     help from Saddam Hussein. As one example, to help war crimes 
     investigators, the U.S. Government is today announcing the 
     declassification of overhead imagery products of Halabja 
     taken in March 1988, the best image we have that was taken a 
     little more than a week after the attack. We hope this will 
     serve as a photo-map to enable witnesses to describe to 
     investigators, doctors and scientists what they were during 
     those

[[Page 19128]]

     terrible days of the Iraqi chemical attack and its aftermath.
       3. The Anfal campaigns. Beginning in 1987 and accelerating 
     in early 1988, Saddam Hussein ordered the ``Anfal'' campaign 
     against the Iraqi Kurdish people. By any measure, this 
     constituted a crime against humanity and a war crime. 
     Chemical Ali has admitted to witnesses that he carried out 
     this campaign ``under orders.'' In 1995, Human Rights Watch 
     published a compilation of their reports in the book ``Iraq's 
     Crime of Genocide,'' which is now out of print. Human Rights 
     Watch needs to reprint this book. Human Rights Watch 
     estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds were killed. 
     Based on their review of captured Iraqi documents, interviews 
     with hundreds of eyewitnesses, and on-site forensic 
     investigations, they concluded that the Anfal campaign was 
     genocide. I challenge anyone to read the evidence cited in 
     Iraqs Crime of Genocide and come to any different conclusion.
       4. The invasion and occupation of Kuwait. On August 2, 
     1990, Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to invade and occupy 
     Kuwait. It took military force by the international community 
     and actions by the Kuwaiti themselves to liberate Kuwait in 
     February 1991. During the occupation, Saddam Hussein's forces 
     killed more than a thousand Kuwaiti nationals, as well as 
     many others from other nations. Evidence of many of these 
     killings is on file with authorities in Kuwait and at the 
     United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva. Saddam 
     Hussein's forces committed many other crimes in Kuwait, 
     including environmental crimes such as the destruction of oil 
     wells in Kuwait's oil fields, massive looting of Kuwaiti 
     property--Saddam's son Uday appears to have treated Kuwait as 
     his personal used car lot. As well, Saddam Hussein's 
     government held hostages from many nations in an effort to 
     coerce their governments into pro-Iraqi policies. During the 
     war, Iraqi authorities also committed war crimes against 
     Coalition forces. War crimes against American servicemembers 
     were detailed in a report to Congress and in an article by 
     Lee Haworth and Jim Hergen in Society magazine back in 
     January 1994.
       5. The suppression of the 1991 uprising. In March and April 
     of 1991, Saddam Hussein's forces killed somewhere between 
     30,000 and 60,000 Iraqis, most of them civilians. The story 
     of the uprising of the Iraqi people is one of courage and 
     hope for the people of Iraq and has been told by men such as 
     former Iraqi General NaJib al-Salihi in his book Al-Zilzal, 
     ``The Earthquake.'' The story of the uprising that started in 
     the south, a part of the country traditionally neglected and 
     deprived by Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad, deserves 
     to be better known outside of Iraq. Most of those killed were 
     civilians, not resistance fighters--a distinction that Saddam 
     Hussein did not respect in 1991 any more than he has before 
     or since. This qualifies as a crime against humanity and 
     possibly also a war crime.
       6. The draining of the southern marshes. Beginning in the 
     early 1990's, and continuing to this day, Saddam Hussein's 
     government has drained the southern marshes of Iraq, 
     depriving thousands of Iraqis of their livelihood and their 
     ability to live on land that their ancestors have lived on 
     for thousands of years. This is clearly not a land 
     reclamation project, or a border security project as some of 
     Saddam's defenders have claimed. Instead, as groups such as 
     the Amar Foundation have begun to document, Saddam's efforts 
     have served to render the land less fertile, and less able to 
     sustain the livelihood or security of the Iraqi people. This 
     qualifies as a crime against humanity and may possibly 
     constitute genocide.
       7. Ethnic cleansing of ethnic ``Persians'' from Iraq to 
     Iran, and an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the non-
     Arabs of Kirkuk and other northern districts. This ongoing 
     campaign of ethnic cleansing was documented by the former 
     U.N. Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Iraq, Max van der 
     Stoel in his reports in 1999.
       8. Continuing unlawful killings of political opponents. 
     Many groups have documented Saddam Hussein's ongoing campaign 
     against political opponents, including killings, tortures, 
     and--lately--rape. As some of you may know, the regime has 
     been using sexual assaults of women in an effort to 
     intimidate leaders of the Iraqi opposition. We salute the 
     courage of opposition leaders such as General Najib al-Salihi 
     for speaking out about this crime. The regime is also 
     carrying out a systematic campaign of murder and intimidation 
     of clergy, especially Shi's clergy. The number of those 
     killed unlawfully is difficult to estimate but must be well 
     in excess of 10,000 since 1979. The number of victims of 
     torture no doubt well exceeds the number of those killed.
       Who is responsible for these crimes? Like Slobodan 
     Milosevic, Saddam Hussein did not commit these crimes an his 
     own. He has built up one of the world's most ruthless police 
     states using a very small number of associates who share with 
     him the responsibility for these criminal actions. The non-
     governmental group INDICT some time ago developed a list of 
     12 of those most deserving of international indictment. To 
     refresh everyone's recollection, they are:
       1. Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq and chairman of the 
     Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). I will have more to say 
     about the, RCC shortly.
       2. Ali Hassan al-Majid, ``Chemical Ali,'' reviled for his 
     enthusiasm in using poison gas against Iraqi Kurds and in the 
     Iran-Iraq war. He also turned up in Kuwait during the 
     occupation and, more recently, as governor in the south of 
     Iraq during recent periods of repression against the people 
     there. When someone shows up at crime scene after crime 
     scene, the pattern of evidence becomes clear.
       3. Saddam's elder son Uday, a commander of a ruthless 
     paramilitary organization that maintains Saddam's hold on 
     power.
       4. Saddam's younger son Qusay Saddam Hussein, the Head of 
     the Special Security Organization, reputed by many to be 
     Saddam's likely successor.
       5. Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi, Deputy Prime Minister of 
     Iraq.
       6. Taha Yasin Ramadan, Vice President of Iraq.
       7. Barzan al-Tikriti former Head of Iraqi Intelligence.
       8. Watban al-Tikriti, former Minister of the Interior.
       9. Sabawi al-Tikriti, former Head of Intelligence and the 
     General Security Organization.
       10. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri vice chairman of the 
     Revolutionary Command Council and former Head of the 
     Revolutionary Court.
       11. Tariq Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq.
       12. Aziz Salih Noman, Governor of Kuwait during the Iraqi 
     occupation.


      II. Building the Case: What the United States Has Been Doing

       The charges are clear. The targets of prosecution are 
     identified. Let me turn to a brief description of what the 
     United States has been doing in the past year to gather the 
     evidence of Iraqi crimes against humanity, war crimes and 
     genocide.
       First, we have undertaken an analysis of the de jure case 
     against Saddam Hussein. This is important because a more 
     straightforward de jure case can greatly simplify the work of 
     prosecutors. As some of you know, the International Criminal 
     Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia took advantage of Slobodan 
     Milosevic's official role as President of the FRY in 1999 to 
     indict him for crimes against humanity in Kosovo, whereas he 
     has not yet been indicted for his responsibility for crimes 
     committed during the 1991-95 wars in Bosnia and Croatia, when 
     he was nominally only President of Serbia.
       The de jure case against Saddam Hussein and his top 
     associates is rock-solid. To summarize briefly, Article 37 of 
     the current Iraqi constitution names the Revolutionary 
     Command Council (RCC) the supreme body in the state. Articles 
     42 and 43 state that the RCC has the power to promulgate laws 
     and decrees that have the force of law. Article 38 states 
     that the RCC chairman is also the President, who is 
     responsible under Article 57-59 for the acts of the Iraqi 
     military and security services. The RCC chairman and Iraqi 
     president is, of course, Saddam Hussein.
       We have also been doing our part on the de facto case. Our 
     second area of work has been in connection with one of the 
     most important archives of evidence--millions of pages of 
     captured Iraqi documents taken out of northern Iraq by Human 
     Rights Watch and the U.S. Government. We scanned these onto 
     176 CD-ROM's. Last October, we announced we had given a set 
     of the 176 CD-ROM's to the Iraq Foundation, along with a 
     grant to make the full collection of these documents 
     available on the Internet to scholars, journalists and, 
     eventually, prosecutors worldwide. I know the Iraq Foundation 
     and the Iraq Research and Documentation Project have been 
     working hard on that project, which I will let them describe 
     further.
       Third, the U.S. Government has another archive of millions 
     of pages of documents captured by U.S. forces in Kuwait and 
     southern Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. I announced on 
     August 2 that we have been working to declassify these 
     documents and that we were giving the first of these to the 
     Iraq Foundation. Today, I am announcing that we have given 
     several hundred more to the Iraq Foundation, as well. I will 
     let the Iraq Foundation describe further what is in this 
     collection.
       Fourth, the U.S. Government has an extensive archive of 
     classified documents relating to Iraqi war crimes during the 
     Gulf War. Since October, staff from my office have located 
     and reviewed these materials. If you remember the final scene 
     of ``Raiders of the Lost Ark'' where the Ark is being wheeled 
     into a warehouse of crate upon crate, I should tell you that 
     that warehouse does exist--it's in Suitland, Maryland--and 
     that my staff found these materials on Iraqi war crimes . . . 
     located safely right next to the Ark of the Covenant. U.S. 
     Army lawyers and investigators did a truly outstanding job of 
     compiling this evidence and organizing it in ways that will 
     prove valuable to the staff of a tribunal or commission. Some 
     of the materials can eventually be declassified. While we do 
     not intend to make all of these documents public, we have 
     worked closely with past commissions of experts and tribunals 
     to allow them access to classified material in accordance 
     with U.S. laws that protect

[[Page 19129]]

     sources and methods. We would be willing to do the same for a 
     commission or tribunal looking into the crimes of Saddam 
     Hussein and his henchmen.
       I must also salute the work of Kuwaiti prosecutors, the 
     Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, and others there 
     in documenting Saddam Hussein's crimes against the Kuwaiti 
     people. After the liberation, Kuwaiti authorities undertook a 
     systematic effort at collecting evidence and documenting 
     Iraqi war crimes in Kuwait. As some of you know, Kuwaiti 
     prosecutors recently completed a thorough trial of Alaa 
     Hussein, installed in August 1990 by Saddam Hussein as the 
     quisling governor of Kuwait during the early weeks of the 
     occupation. Kuwaiti prosecutors showed, through their 
     professionalism in that trial their ability to present 
     evidence of Iraqi war crimes committed 10 years ago.
       Fifth, U.S. Government officials have been meeting with 
     witnesses and former Iraqi officials to gather evidence of 
     Iraqi war crimes. There is no substitute for eyewitness 
     accounts in any criminal prosecution, before an international 
     tribunal or in national courts. We have learned a lot in 
     these interviews. As a rule, we treat information provided to 
     us in confidence, so we leave it to those who talk to us 
     whether to go public with what they have experienced. There 
     have been a number of cases where valuable leads have come 
     forward. We understand other groups are also active in 
     interviewing witnesses, but I will leave it to them to 
     describe their own work.
       Sixth, to support our other work the U.S. Government has 
     undertaken a review of imagery to declassify potential 
     evidence of both historical and more recent Iraqi criminal 
     conduct. We have made public imagery products showing the 
     ongoing work to drain the southern marshes, and destroy Iraqi 
     villages. Recently, the Iraq Foundation received a report of 
     the destruction of the southern Iraqi village of Albu Ayish 
     on March 28 and April 5, 1999. We were able to locate imagery 
     products from September 1998 and December 1999 that confirms 
     this account. Those of you familiar with Jamie Rubin's press 
     briefings of the conflict in Kosovo will recognize this 
     presentation. [Show] On the left is Albu Ayish as it existed 
     before Iraqi forces moved in. You can see the school near the 
     river, here. The buildings surrounding it have roofs on them. 
     In the ``after'' picture, here, the school is intact. That is 
     more than you can say for the buildings surrounding the 
     school, which bear the signs of destruction from ground 
     level. I will leave it to Rend Franke if she wants to say 
     more about what happened to the families at Albu Ayish and 
     surrounding towns in southern Iraq. Albu Ayish is but one 
     example of what the U.S. Government is doing to review 
     imagery of Iraqi war crimes.
       All in all, we have had a productive year in developing and 
     preserving evidence of Iraqi crimes against humanity and war 
     crimes. We are the first to say there is much more that needs 
     to be done. To that end, we are hoping the Congress will give 
     us the President's full requested appropriations so that this 
     important work can continue for another year. We also 
     anticipate further strong contributions to this work by the 
     Iraqi opposition. The Iraqi National Congress, in particular, 
     tell us they plan to devote substantial efforts to this cause 
     as part of its upcoming $8 million work program.


              III. The Reaction from Baghdad and Elsewhere

       Let me turn to my third main point. One of the most 
     interesting aspects of our work on documenting Iraqi war 
     crimes, and engaging with other governments on this issue, 
     has been the reactions we have received. Let me first talk 
     about Baghdad's reaction. Saddam Hussein recognizes that he 
     is vulnerable to calls for accountability for his crimes 
     against humanity, genocide and war crimes. Articles in the 
     international press have reported that the regime takes 
     international efforts to establish a tribunal seriously. 
     Threats of possible arrest have caused Iraqi officials to 
     curtail or forgo travel to European countries whose laws 
     allow arrest under the U.N. Convention Against Torture. The 
     regime has also harassed Iraqis and other who speek out 
     against the regime's crimes. For example, the regime sent 
     someone with an Iraqi diplomatic passport--I hesitate to call 
     him an Iraqi diplomat--to try to film participants at 
     INDICT's conference on Iraqi war crimes in paris this past 
     April.
       There is another important aspect of the Iraqi reaction, as 
     well. Saddam Hussein realizes that international discussion 
     of his crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes 
     reveals the truth about his policies towards the Iraqi people 
     for the last 20 years. This is a regime that maintains its 
     power through crime--whether it be by crimes against humanity 
     and war crimes, or by killings, torture or the threat of 
     killings and torture, of Iraqi citizens, and by looting the 
     property that rightly belongs to the people of Iraq or Iraq's 
     neighbors. Make no mistake--those crimes are continuing to 
     this day.
       Saddam Hussein clearly fears the truth. Journalists who 
     travel to Iraq all have ``minders.'' It takes courageous 
     journalists, and documentary film producers like Joel Soler, 
     to tell any story other than the one that Saddam Hussein's 
     regime wants you to tell. (I hope you all can see Mr. Soler's 
     documentary, ``Uncle Saddam'' at 1:00 this afternoon.) One 
     recent visitor to Iraq traveled to Baghdad earlier this year 
     and was shown hospital beds with two patients to a bed. It 
     was only when he slipped away from his minder that he found 
     out that around the corner, out of sight, was a room full of 
     empty hospital beds. Last week, as you read in Barbara 
     Crossette's story in September 12th's New York Times, Saddam 
     Hussein kept U.N. humanitarian experts from traveling to Iraq 
     to assess the true living conditions in Iraq. She wrote, 
     ``President Saddam Hussein, whose government is now probably 
     the world's most repressive, wants to control all contact 
     between Iraqis and outsiders, and can in effect veto the 
     assignment to Iraq of even United Nations officials.'' Large 
     aid organizations based in Europe have been barred from areas 
     in Iraq under the regime's controls. Instead, only small, 
     anti-sanctions protesters, ``who bring in relatively small 
     amounts of aid, are welcomed for their propaganda value.'' 
     Any statistics from Iraq, or taken by Iraqi officials for the 
     U.N., are seriously suspect. A recent Fellow at the U.S. 
     Institute of Peace, Amatzia Baram, documented in this 
     Spring's issue of Middle East Journal how the Government of 
     Iraq denies U.N. relief agencies accurate and reliable 
     statistics on the true conditions inside Iraq. No reporter 
     should uncritically accept as true any Iraqi statistics, 
     based on the research and data shown in this article. Iraqi 
     human rights and opposition groups frequently must work hard 
     and take risks to get the truth out of Iraq, and I am honored 
     to be here with some of their representatives today. Saddam 
     Hussein refused every year to allow the former U.N. Special 
     Human Rights Rapporteur for Iraq, Max van der Stoel, to visit 
     Iraq to find out the truth about Iraqi human rights abuses. 
     The new rapporteur, Andreas Mavrommatis of Cyprus, has not 
     been allowed into Iraq, either. Efforts to keep U.N. arms 
     inspectors from the truth about Saddam's nuclear, chemical 
     and biological weapons are so well-known I will not repeat 
     them, except to say there were many ``full and final 
     disclosures.'' Russian diplomat Yuli M. Voronstov was this 
     year denied entry to find out the true fate of more than 600 
     missing Kuwaitis taken captive by Iraq during the occupation 
     of Kuwait and, thus far, never returned to their families. 
     Their fate is known up until the time they were taken to a 
     prison in Basrah, southern Iraq, and they have never been 
     heard from since. It is true that, a few years ago, Iraq 
     admitted it had been holding hundreds of Iranian prisoners of 
     war more than 10 years after the end of the Iran-Iraq War. 
     When the truth came out, Irag was forced to release its 
     prisoners.
       All this effort to conceal the truth about what is going on 
     inside Iraq today is hard to explain without understanding 
     the context of Saddam Hussein's 20-year record of crimes 
     against humanity by the Iraqi regime. We know from those who 
     have been in Saddam's inner office that he admires Josef 
     Stalin, and he has clearly tried to emulate Stalin's methods 
     of brutality, terror, covering up the truth, and using 
     propaganda to project a different image. An awareness of the 
     criminal character of Saddam Hussein's regime puts in context 
     his current propaganda campaign. No wonder Saddam Hussein is 
     concerned about efforts to establish an international 
     tribunal that would document the truth of his 20 years of 
     crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. It would 
     end international support for Saddam Hussein's campaign to 
     gain personal control of billions of dollars of Iraqi oil 
     revenues that is now dedicated to the Iraqi people through 
     the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. Make no mistake--the United 
     States is committed to finding ways of improving conditions 
     for the Iraqi people, but we cannot foresee the suspension of 
     U.N. sanctions except through full compliance with the 
     Security Council's resolutions that were adopted precisely as 
     a result of Saddam Hussein's crimes against humanity, 
     genocide, and war crimes against the peoples of Iraq and 
     Iraq's neighbors.
       The United States has held discussions in the last year 
     with a number of governments and non-governmental 
     organizations who share the desire for an international 
     tribunal to indict Saddam Hussein and his top aides for their 
     crimes. We have also compiled a collection of arguments from 
     those who don't want to support a tribunal. As you would 
     expect, none of them withstands scrutiny. Let me share some 
     of the answers we have given and let you be the judge.
       Until recently, some people said there was no reason to 
     bring Saddam to justice since most of his crimes took place 
     long ago, starting right after he seized absolute power in 
     1979. That argument doesn't work any more, since other recent 
     efforts for justice in Europe and Asia have reached back 
     prior to 1979, when Saddam Hussein murdered his way to the 
     presidency of Iraq. The worst abuses of the Pinochet era took 
     place in 1973-1979, and the crimes against humanity of the 
     Khmer Rouge era took place in 1975-1979. As Secretary 
     Albright has long made clear, there is no statute of 
     limitations for genocide or crimes against humanity.
       Some have said that the Security Council should not 
     establish another ad hoc international tribunal and instead 
     wait for the

[[Page 19130]]

     International Criminal Court (ICC) to come into force. The 
     ICC Treaty will not come into force for at least two more 
     years, and it will not have jurisdiction over crimes 
     committed before the Treaty comes into force. Therefore, the 
     ICC will be not able to hold Saddam Hussein and his 
     associates accountable for between a hundred thousand and a 
     quarter of a million civilian deaths, nor for the tortures, 
     rapes, lootings and other crimes against humanity and war 
     crimes of the past, nor for crimes against humanity that are 
     still going on inside Iraq today. Nor, under Article 12 of 
     the Treaty, is the ICC going to be able to indict Saddam for 
     crimes he commits in the future inside Iraq unless the 
     Security Council acts to establish the court's jurisdiction 
     over his crimes, which we, and others, say should happen 
     right now.
       Our pursuit of justice in Iraq is entirely consistent with 
     the objectives of the International Criminal Court, 
     objectives we have long supported. Governments that support 
     international justice need to work together in real time on 
     the most demanding issues of accountability of this era--in 
     places like the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, 
     Cambodia--and Iraq. It would be ironic indeed if the 
     generation of leaders who drafted the ICC Treaty turned their 
     backs on some of the most egregious crimes of our time. The 
     ICC will not succeed if its supporters are not willing to 
     demand accountability for war criminals like Saddam Hussein.
       Finally, there used to be those who said that the threat of 
     indictment of officials around Saddam Hussein would deter 
     them from leading a coup against him. The nature of the Iraqi 
     regime--both in fact and in law--is that Saddam Hussein and a 
     very small group of men around him have wielded absolute 
     power. They are not likely to be the ones to lead an uprising 
     against Saddam. They deserve to be the ones held responsible 
     for the regime's crimes against humanity, genocide and war 
     crimes. When Saddam passes from the scene--and this will 
     happen sooner or later--there will need to be a process of 
     truth and reconciliation for the bulk of Iraqi society if it 
     is to make peace with itself. We owe it to the victims of 20 
     years of the crimes of this regime to hold accountable those 
     at the top who wielded absolute power and ruined the lives of 
     millions of Iraqis.
       The last argument that never gets made, at least publicly, 
     is money--that there is profit in doing business with the 
     Baghdad regime despite its criminal character. Countries that 
     have ratified the ICC treaty have already expressed, 
     explicitly or implicitly, their policy decision that economic 
     grounds are insufficient to let a war criminal off the hook. 
     We believe there is much more to gain for international peace 
     and security from pursuing international justice against 
     Saddam Hussein than would ever be possible to gain for 
     private profit from pursuing international commerce with 
     Saddam Hussein. Moreover, in the end, Saddam Hussein's 
     criminal regime will go. At that time, the Iraqi people will 
     look up, around them, and see who stood up for justice for 
     the victims of Saddam Hussein's criminal regime, and who 
     opposed efforts to bring the regime to justice. It is in 
     everyone's long-term interests--economic, political, and 
     moral--to side with justice for the peoples of Iraq, Iran, 
     Kuwait, and elsewhere.


                             IV. Conclusion

       In conclusion, let me say this. Iraq is a proud nation. Its 
     heritage goes back to the days of Hammurabi the lawgiver and 
     the four schools of Islamic law of the Abbasid Caliphate 
     (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali), and the great Shi'ite 
     schools of Islamic theology that Saddam Hussein has sought to 
     destroy. Saddam tries to liken himself to the great 
     Nebuchadnezzar II, when it is more likely history will judge 
     him as a latter-day Hulagu Khan, the Mongol conqueror who 
     left Iraq a legacy of death, devastation and misrule. Mongol 
     conquerors built a pyramid of the skulls of their victims; 
     Saddam Hussein used helmets of Iranian soldiers killed during 
     the Iran-Iraq War. The time has come for Saddam Hussein and 
     his top associates to be held accountable for their 20 years 
     of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. I hope 
     you will join with me these next few months in advancing the 
     cause of justice in Iraq.

     

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