The Butcher of Baghdad on the Block

The Trial gets underway. The Butcher held fast to his delusions of grandeur. He refuses to be referred to as the former President of Iraq, saying he still holds the office. He scuffles with guards in a shameful photo-op. It's going to be a long trial.
My Way News has the story here.

A defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of murder and torture as his long-awaited trial began Wednesday with the one-time dictator arguing about the legitimacy of the court and scuffling with guards.

The first session of the trial lasted about three hours, and the judge ordered an adjournment until Nov. 28.

Saddam and his seven co-defendants could face the death penalty if convicted for the 1982 massacre of nearly 150 Shiites in the town of Dujail. They are being tried in the former headquarters of Saddam's Baath Party.

After presiding judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd, read the defendants their rights and the charges against them - which also include forced expulsions and illegal imprisonment - he asked each for their plea. He started with the 68-year-old ousted dictator, saying "Mr. Saddam, go ahead. Are you guilty or innocent?"

Saddam - holding a copy of the Quran he brought with him into the session and held throughout - replied quietly, "I said what I said. I am not guilty," referring to his arguments earlier in the session.

Amin read out the plea, "Innocent."

The confrontation then became physical. When a break was called, Saddam stood, smiling, and asked to step out of the room. When two guards tried to grab his arms to escort him out, he angrily shook them off.

They tried to grab him again, and Saddam struggled to free himself. Saddam and the guards shoved each other and yelled for about a minute.

It ended with Saddam getting his way, and he was allowed to walk independently, with the two guards behind him, out of the room for the break.

Many Iraqis and others across the Middle East were glued to their television sets to watch the first-ever criminal trial of an Arab leader.

When the US took Baghdad, Iraqis welcomed the shattering of the Butcher's regime by stomping his fallen statue with their sandals. Since the fall of Baghdad, the Iraqis have voted for interim leaders in January and, most recently, approved a constitution for a representative republic to govern their nation. They braved terrorist threats and violence in order to express their voice and command their destiny. Now, they begin to hold the maniac most responsible for the erosion and destruction of their once-impressive society accountable. The Butcher of Baghdad may posture before Al-Jazzeera all he wants; he can't wash the blood and tears of those he abused and butchered from his soiled hands. The Iraqis will have justice, while the terrorists that would impose a Hussein-style Dictatorship will suffocate as the new Iraqi society emerges.

How little the Butcher of Baghdad has become. Rather than preserve whatever dignity he possibly could, Mr. Hussein instead flaunts a futile bravado and attempts to rule in the only public forum he has left: his own trial. His pathetic behavior will do more to convince the Iraqis of his irrelevence and impotence than anything the US or her allies could possibly do. He'll also show his demented Baath loyalists in the murderer's row the MSM calls the "insurgency" just how insignificant he truly is.

The tyranny of the Butcher of Baghdad is long over. Only Mr. Hussein himself refuses to see it.