The Prisoner in His Palace Page 8

  First, Nuaimi replied, you keep addressing him as “president.” He is not “president” anymore. He is your father, and I’ll refer to him that way.

  Raghad winced. It wasn’t common for anyone to speak to her like this. Indeed, when she’d defected to Jordan with her husband back in the nineties she’d whispered conspiratorially to trusted Jordanians that she, in fact, was the decision-maker in her marriage. She forced herself to smile, feigning a relaxed insouciance in the face of Nuaimi’s brusque declarations.

  Second, the former justice minister said, I have a number of conditions before I would consider accepting.

  But wait, Raghad said, confused as to why the encounter had gotten off to such a poor start; Ramsey told me this was a good idea. She was referring to Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. attorney general who’d recently agreed to defend Saddam. Since leaving government, Clark had undergone a radical transformation, using the exposure afforded by his defense of international pariahs—ranging from Charles Taylor to Slobodan Milošević—to lambast U.S. foreign policy.

  I know all about Ramsey, Nuaimi said. I know he has lots of strong political views and motivations. I’m not like this. I do not know your father. I’ve been against his regime all my life. Politically we are not, and never have been, on the same side. He paused, as if to consider something, before continuing. On the human side he has a right to choose a lawyer, just as much as any person in this world. If your father wants me, he has to write a letter to me asking me to represent him, and he must sign it. I will accept that. I will not ask for one dollar in fees or expenses. If I do this, it will be voluntary. I’m not so cheap that I can be bought.

  No, no, we can surely pay you, Raghad quickly offered.

  I don’t need your fees. I’m a rich man, Nuaimi said. I’m not looking for business. Having defined the initial parameters of the relationship, he felt compelled to confront Raghad with what he judged was an inescapable truth: You have to understand that your father will be hanged, he said.

  Don’t say that! Raghad responded. I received some messages saying that Bush may send someone to mediate, and that my father may be able to go to Qatar as a guest.

  This kind of bullshit isn’t going to happen, Nuaimi said, hoping that his bluntness would shake her of what he considered to be her fantasies. The trial will occur, and it will end with a ruling that your father must hang. You must understand, I was a minister in my country. I know how these things work. This will be a manufactured court, not a real one, and your father will never receive a proper defense. All of the judges will be motivated by ethnic politics and hatreds toward your father.

  Raghad turned pale. There’s nothing we can do?

  Nuaimi didn’t answer.

  It was tough to tell if she was more upset by this sobering assessment of her father’s situation, or by the implication that she’d never return to Iraq as part of an eventual restoration of Baath Party power. Nuaimi suspected the latter. I’m just telling you the truth, he finally said, bringing their meeting to a close.

  CHAPTER 17

  Iraqi High Tribunal, Baghdad, Iraq—summer of 2005

  Salaam, Mr. al-Nuaimi, Saddam said to the newest member of his legal team. The former Iraqi ruler and the former Qatari justice minister were meeting in a bare subterranean antechamber beneath the courtroom at the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Joining Nuaimi were other members of Saddam’s defense team, including Ramsey Clark, Khalil al-Dulaimi, and Khamis al-Obeidi—the latter two being Iraqi lawyers. As greetings were exchanged the Iraqis kissed Saddam’s hand in the traditional sign of respect and deference. Clark and Nuaimi did not.

  The men then took their seats around a plain table. The room was filled with Saddam’s cigar smoke—something that the health-conscious Nuaimi grew to find more and more unpleasant as their relationship deepened. A uniformed Iraqi man with a beard quietly took a seat near them by the door without identifying himself. Nuaimi looked the man over suspiciously, hoping that his icy glare would be enough to convince him he wasn’t welcome. The Iraqi didn’t budge.

  Who are you? Nuaimi asked him coldly.

  I’m a sheriff of the court, the man responded.

  Nuaimi had no idea what that meant, and wouldn’t be easily cowed. So what are you doing here? he pressed.

  Nothing, just sitting, he said.

  Is this a restaurant or something? Nuaimi asked, a sarcastic edge to his voice.

  I have my instructions, the man responded.

  Bring me your boss, demanded Nuaimi.

  The man obliged, and returned shortly with a Marine officer.

  What’s wrong? asked the officer, suggesting by the tone of his voice that his intent was to defuse, rather than escalate, the situation.

  There is something called confidentiality with a client, and this man won’t leave, Nuaimi explained.

  Let me ask my boss, the Marine responded.

  Nuaimi bristled, fed up with the delay. Listen, if he doesn’t leave, we’re not meeting, Saddam will have no legal representation, and I’ll tell the court and the world what a terrible operation you’re running.

  Okay, okay, let’s go, said the Marine, ushering the mysterious bearded man to the door.

  As the uninvited observer was being led out, Saddam let out a deep laugh and began clapping. You must have charisma to talk like this, he said approvingly. He shot a withering look at his Iraqi attorney and added, Someone always sat in my meetings with Khalil.

  I am not Khalil, Nuaimi replied, as Khalil looked on, silently embarrassed but unwilling to spar with these two heavyweights.

  Can we speak freely now? asked Saddam.

  Sure, there are no dictators in the room, said Nuaimi, the double meaning in his choice of words intentional.

  Oh, Dr. Najeeb, very clever, Saddam responded, laughing once again. He knew the Qatari was an accomplished lawyer, and no apologist for his former regime.

  Before we start, is there anything you really need? Nuaimi asked Saddam. Not legally, just in general. Is there anything you haven’t been provided and would like?

  I can ask? said Saddam, appearing surprised to be afforded such an opportunity. Wasting little time in deliberating, he said, I need new shoes. I’ve been wearing these for two years and they’re not mine. He then quickly gave Khalil his size, as well as sizes for some new suits and other articles of clothing he wanted. It would be the last time during the discussion that Saddam would perk up.

  As Nuaimi pivoted into terrain less comfortable for the former dictator, it became clear that Saddam was more concerned about his appearance, and the optics of the trial as it was broadcast across the Middle East, than in actually developing a legal defense.

  Nuaimi’s pessimism certainly did nothing to encourage Saddam’s more active participation in the development of a legal strategy.

  There is nothing we can do to succeed in this trial, Nuaimi bluntly announced. These judges are just politicians, he continued, and this is nothing more than a play whose script has already been written.

  No one spoke to Saddam with this kind of candor. After an uncomfortable silence, the former president quietly said, “I know.” He added that because of this they would need to focus their energies on the media. They would need to communicate to the world that the proceedings were a farce. Let’s forget about this as a court capable of making a fair judgment, Saddam went on, and use this as a platform to show the criminality of the entire occupation.

  Before Saddam got carried away, Nuaimi felt compelled to again disabuse him of any delusions he might still be harboring. You will be hanged, the Qatari said.

  That was enough to stir Ramsey Clark from his silence. Why are you talking like this? he demanded, frustrated by what he felt was Nuaimi’s almost gratuitously candid pessimism.

  Nuaimi explained to Clark that he had to be brutally honest to offset the influence of some Iraqis who’d been feeding Saddam’s hopes that he’d be freed, that Iraqis were fighting and beating Americans outside the p
rison every day, and that his supporters would soon be able to break him out. This picture they’re painting is garbage, Nuaimi continued, and they’re cheating Saddam by misleading him.

  What’s your opinion, Mr. al-Nuaimi? Saddam asked.

  The former dictator could sometimes seem downright reticent, something those meeting him for the first time could find disarming. Dr. Ala Bashir, his physician for nearly twenty years, once said about him, “When you talk to him, he listens to you. I’ve never known a better listener. He doesn’t seem like the same man who does these cruel things.”

  My opinion? Nuaimi responded incredulously. What opinion? What I’ve said is fact.

  Okay, if this is going to happen, it will happen, Saddam finally said with a curious mix of resignation and determination. Can you speak with the Americans and tell them that as the chief of the Iraqi military I need to be shot and not hanged? he asked. The notion that he might be hanged like a common criminal—an “Ali Baba,” as Iraqis called them disparagingly, or worse yet, a traitor—seemed to bother him more than death itself.

  Nuaimi then recounted to Saddam the story of Hermann Göring, who committed suicide on the eve of his scheduled hanging at Nuremberg.

  I am a Muslim, I won’t do this, replied Saddam, dismissing the idea but not lashing out at its messenger.

  Years later, Nuaimi recalled that he’d expected to meet a “tough” Saddam, a poor listener who demanded obedience and acquiescence from his team. Instead, he said, “I liked him from that first meeting.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Iraqi High Tribunal, Baghdad, Iraq—fall of 2005

  “Shrugi,” Saddam whispered venomously as he passed the chief prosecutor, Jaafar al-Moussawi. It was 12:21 p.m. on October 19, 2005, and Saddam was the last of the eight defendants to enter the Iraqi High Tribunal courtroom. He was there to stand trial for crimes against humanity, allegedly committed during the 1982 crackdown in Dujail. Saddam’s slur was a crude insult used to deride Shia Muslims from regions bordering Iran as backward and uncivilized—it was akin to calling someone a hillbilly or redneck in the United States. Ancient sectarian hatreds were never far from the surface during the trial, and since the proceedings were televised, the hatreds would sometimes boil over for the world to see.

  Unlike some of the other defendants, Saddam had had his handcuffs removed. On this day, he couldn’t have looked more different from the bedraggled man pulled from the spider hole. Nattily attired in a gray suit with no tie, his beard freshly trimmed, he clutched a green Koran embossed with gold script. It was huge, the size of a large old-fashioned leather dictionary, and he carried it proudly and prominently, as he would throughout the trial. It was a symbol that played well with Sunni partisans despite widespread recognition that he’d hardly lead a pious life.

  The room surged with energy as Saddam strode proudly into it, similar to when a musician finally takes the stage after a period of anxious anticipation. The swagger of Saddam’s courtroom entrances reminded Paul Sphar—the portly American military policeman from Texas who, like the rest of the Super Twelve, didn’t arrive in Iraq until the trial’s late stages—of a WWE wrestler entering the ring. As Saddam entered, the other codefendants and his defense lawyers rose obediently in deference to the fallen leader, an embarrassing display of fealty that the authorities made sure wouldn’t happen again. In subsequent court appearances, the deposed ruler was led in first.

  Saddam stood before the Iraqi High Tribunal, the “internationalized domestic court” that featured statutes borrowed almost verbatim from the International Criminal Court and combined them with Iraqi criminal procedure. Five Iraqi judges would preside over Saddam and seven codefendants. Remarkably, Salem Chalabi, the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, the prominent Iraqi Shiite expatriate whose shrewd lobbying had helped convince the Bush administration to go to war, had heavily influenced their selection. The close associations among the court, the Americans, and prominent Iraqi Shia politicians who’d been vocal opponents of Saddam’s regime would almost immediately invite questions about the judges’ objectivity.

  Saddam had come full circle, as he was being tried just down the road from the Republican Palace, nerve center of the absolute power he’d wielded until a few short years ago. The tribunal had been established under the auspices of the American Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). As the security situation in Baghdad continued to deteriorate, the concussive booms of nearby American artillery shook the courtroom walls with greater frequency. Some of the American civilians assisting the Iraqi government in the Green Zone spun this as a positive development, evidence that the military was really “taking it to the enemy.” Others viewed the escalating violence with creeping dread. Most assumed that Saddam would be emboldened by the auditory reminders that the occupation wasn’t going as swimmingly as the Americans would have him believe.

  The chief judge as the trial began was Rizgar Amin, a Kurd with a receding gray hairline and mustache whose reading glasses often perched atop his hawk-like nose. He alone among the judges allowed himself to be broadcast on camera despite the obvious security risks that posed to him and his family. A black robe with white tassel was draped over his suit and tie as he sat on a large leather chair on an elevated bench in the front of the courtroom, flanked by his fellow judges. The defendants were led to their seats in a wooden dock, with two rows of three and a rear row of two. They were enclosed by a chest-high wooden railing connected to the ground by wooden legs, and seated in comfortable large black leather chairs. Behind them, on the other side of a Plexiglas wall, was a gallery stocked with media and “local observers,” including a number of prominent Shia who’d either been persecuted by Saddam or worked to overthrow him.

  Judge Amin began, saying: “If you please, your full name.” As he spoke, he directed Saddam to the microphone situated in the front of the defendants’ wooden dock.

  The former Iraqi president responded, “In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate: Men said to them, ‘A great army is gathering against you’ and frightened them, but it only increased their faith. They said for us Allah sufficeth—”

  “Mr. Saddam,” Amin interrupted, “we want to record your ID information.”

  Saddam, unfazed, continued, “—and He is the best dispenser of affairs.”

  “Your full name, please,” Amin asked again, growing impatient. “Mr. Saddam, all we’re asking now is your ID information—that is, your name, surname, profession, and residence. You will then have your turn to speak. Could you please give us your ID information?”

  “I do not want to trouble you, because your way of asking is acceptable and because you are acting as a judge,” Saddam responded, oddly gracious in the middle of his calculated disruption.

  “Mr. Saddam, we want your ID information.”

  “Now who and what are you?” Saddam replied with a question of his own.

  “Please give us your ID information and things will become clear,” Amin responded.

  “I should know who is knocking on the door,” Saddam retorted, using one of the folksy aphorisms of which he was fond.

  “We are the Criminal Court of the First Instance at the Iraqi Supreme Crimes Tribunal,” Amin responded, for some reason deigning to respond to the former president.

  “And were you all judges before?” Saddam countered.

  “These matters have nothing to do with you,” Amin said, refusing to take Saddam’s bait this time. “Please be seated, Mr. Saddam. We will get back to you after we have finished noting the ID information of the others,” Amin finally concluded. He seemed to have resigned himself to failure in his very first attempt to move the trial forward.

  “I hold no grudges against any of you,” Saddam continued, “but for the sake of justice and out of respect for the great Iraqi people’s desire when they chose me, I say this: I will not answer the questions of this so-called court despite my respect for its members, and I maintain my constitutional right as president of Iraq—”

  Amin aga
in tried to interrupt Saddam, who seemed poised to launch into a filibuster.

  Undeterred, Saddam barreled on with his peculiar mix of faux deference and bullying. “I will not take up much of your time. I only wish to comment on your request that I identify myself. I do not recognize the party that appointed you and I do not recognize the assault [war on Iraq] because anything built on the wrong basis is in itself wrong.”

  “Meaning that you will not identify yourself,” Amin responded, appearing more and more impotent from his perch on the bench.

  “No, because I do not recognize you,” Saddam said, growing more defiant, his rough Tikriti dialect now reverberating through the courtroom.

  “Fine, please sit down,” Amin finally ordered.

  “Mr. Awad al-Bandar, please identify yourself,” Amin continued, trying to move on and restore a semblance of normalcy to the proceedings.

  “My identity is my headdress, but since they took it away from me on my way here, I no longer have an identity,” Bandar said.

  Bandar had been the former chief judge of the Iraqi Revolutionary Court, which had supposedly sentenced more than a hundred innocent Dujail residents to death in response to the assassination attempt on Saddam. He would prove to be a menacing presence throughout the proceedings. To those guarding him, his antipathy toward the Americans stood out dramatically, especially in contrast to the avuncular manner exhibited by Saddam. Some of the Super Twelve would take to calling him “the Judge” in a tone that was not without some fear.

  “Give us your name, father’s name, and surname,” Amin continued, still trying to score his first procedural victory over the defendants, who were proving, unsurprisingly, to be a disagreeable and uncooperative lot.

  “My headdress is my identity. Why was I not allowed to wear my headdress? I am an Arab and I am wearing a dishdasha—”

  “All I want is your name,” Amin pleaded.

  “My headdress is my identity; you robbed me of my identity when you took away my headdress.”