BAGHDAD, Iraq – Handwriting experts confirmed that Saddam Hussein signed a document linking him to the killing of 148 people during the former Iraqi president’s rule, prosecutors said at Hussein’s trial Monday.
| The latest identifications reported by the U.S. military of personnel recently killed in Iraq:
Marine Lance Cpl. Darin T. Settle, 23, Henley, Mo.; died Friday in a vehicle accident in Anbar province; assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment 2, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. Army Spc. Mark Melcher, 34, Pittsburgh; died in Taqaddum on Saturday, when his tank was attacked; assigned to the National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 103rd Armor, Friedens, Pa. Army Master Sgt. Clinton Cubert, 38, Lawrenceburg, Ky.; died Sunday in Lexington, Ky., of injuries from an explosive that detonated in Samarra in September 2005; assigned to the Army National Guard’s 2113th Transportation Company, Paducah, Ky. |
Most of the hour-long session was taken up with arguments over the authenticity of several documents dealing with the aftermath of a failed assassination attempt against Hussein in the town of Dujail in 1982. A panel of three experts said in a report that the documents were authentic; defense attorneys argued that the experts were biased.
The document signed by Hussein concerned promotions for officers involved in a crackdown against Shiite Muslims in Dujail. Another document involved the head of the intelligence service and listed families whose farmlands were to be razed in retaliation for the attempt on Hussein.
The documents are the only hard evidence so far to directly link Hussein and seven co-defendants to the Dujail massacre.
Hussein and his half-brother refused to provide handwriting samples to the court, so the experts compared handwriting on the documents with those of Hussein and several co-defendants written during Hussein’s presidency. They concluded that the writing matched in every case except that of Mizher Abdullah Kadhim, a Baath Party leader in Dujail at the time of the incident.
“He changed his handwriting so often that it was difficult” to analyze, the report said.
Elsewhere, U.S. troops repelled an attack Monday by Sunni Arab insurgents who used suicide car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons in a coordinated assault against Ramadi’s main government building and two U.S. observation posts. In Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi forces fought an hours-long gunbattle with about 50 insurgents.
Bodies of 17 people believed to be victims of sectarian reprisal killings were found Monday, including one in Basra and the rest in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, prospects for formation of a national unity government dimmed today as Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s Dawa party pledged to support him for another term unless he decides to step aside. Al-Jaafari has refused to give up the nomination, which he won in a Shiite caucus last February.
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