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Iraq to Move Up Trial of Hussein and Start It in Summer

Jun- 1-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

Second Squadron of the 14th Cavalry plays a key role in Anbar Province.

Link to Full Article
By JOHN F. BURNS, New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 31 - Iraq's month-old transitional government, keen to establish its authority after weeks of intensifying insurgent violence, announced Tuesday that planned to move up the trial of Saddam Hussein, bringing him to court this summer. [...]

The renewal of the mandate for American forces came on a day of more jarring developments in the war. The government announced that a shootout involving American troops in the volatile western province of Anbar on Sunday had ended with the discovery of the body of the province's kidnapped governor.

American soldiers involved in the shootout said a rocket-propelled grenade had been fired at a patrol of Stryker armored vehicles from a cinder-block building just north of Rawah, about 70 miles from the Syrian border. After they returned fire, the soldiers said, they found four dead rebels and three who were wounded, and identified all seven as foreigners, from Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Maj. Bryan Denny, executive officer of the Second Squadron of the 14th Cavalry, said one captured man had told the Americans that they had a hostage in the building. But exploding ammunition in the structure, and a warning from the captive that the explosives included a homemade bomb, caused the Americans to pull back, the major said.

When the soldiers entered, Major Denny said, they found the body of a hostage - identified by the government as Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi, the Anbar governor kidnapped in an insurgent ambush on May 10 - blindfolded and tied to a propane tank.

The cause of the governor's death was not clear, although government officials in Baghdad said his wounds suggested that he had been struck by falling masonry.

His death continued the grim history of the men who, by joining the revolving-door succession of governors in Anbar, have tackled what may be the country's most dangerous job. Rebels have forced two of Mr. Mahalawi's predecessors to quit, including one who wept uncontrollably in an insurgent video last year after he traded his resignation for the release of three sons the rebels had kidnapped and threatened to behead. [...]


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