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Better now than Then?

Saddam Cousin Acknowledges Giving Orders
By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer
3 hours ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's cousin acknowledged in court on Sunday he had given orders to destroy scores of villages during Baghdad's campaign against the Kurds in the 1980s, while prosecutors introduced two dozen documents it said incriminated members of Saddam's regime in the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged use of chemical weapons against the Kurds, said the area "was full of Iranian agents. We had to isolate these saboteurs."

"I am the one who gave orders to the army to demolish villages and relocate the villagers," he said.

Al-Majid is one of six defendants facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from Baghdad's military campaign against Iraqi Kurds during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. More than 100,000 Kurds were killed.

Earlier this month al-Majid said that he gave orders to execute people who entered a prohibited area on the border with Iran and that he did not regret crushing the Kurdish uprising.

"I am not defending myself. I am not apologizing. I did not make a mistake," said Al-Majid, wearing a brown Arab gown and a traditional red-and-white Arab headdress.

A prosecutor on Sunday read from documents showing that dozens of villages were destroyed, thousands of people displaced and children separated from their families.

One document detailed the destruction of 21 villages in the first half of August 1987. Another claimed 38 villages were destroyed in the second half of June that year. A third from military archives and signed by a brigadier general said, "We have demolished all villages with tanks."

Before his execution Dec. 30, Saddam was a defendant in the current trial focusing on the so-called Anfal campaign against the Kurds.

He was sentenced to death following his conviction last year for his role in the separate killing of 148 Shiite Muslims after a 1982 assassination attempt against him in Dujail.