Saddam tries to rally Iraqis

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein took the witness stand on Wednesday for his first formal testimony in his trial and delivered an incendiary political diatribe that urged Iraqis to stop sectarian bloodshed and to carry on the war against the Americans.

The presiding judge halted the session after Saddam, brandishing thick reading glasses, repeatedly lambasted the court.

Saddam's nearly 40-minute speech was the most explosive element so far in a trial that has already been punctuated by tirades from the defendants and searing testimony from victims. Saddam marched up to the defendants' lectern in the midafternoon, after his half-brother had spent three hours proclaiming their innocence, and read from a yellow notepad.

Saddam had delivered outbursts before, but his sense of decorum and calm manner on Wednesday showed he was keenly aware that the spotlight was reserved for him. He was better dressed than in previous sessions, draped in a black suit and charcoal-gray vest with a white shirt. His hair was combed and parted.

He went on to do exactly what Iraqi and U.S. officials had long feared he might — use the session, televised across the Middle East, to try to incite the Sunni-led insurgency to further violence.

"You've been great throughout history and you've been great in your resistance to the American and Zionist invasion and its followers," Saddam said in a firm voice, after calling on Iraqis to stop the sectarian violence. "You've been great in my eyes.

"You're defending your country against the occupation," he continued. "I want you to stick to your virtues, your faith and your patience."

In sharp rejoinders, Saddam demonstrated a command of recent events in Iraq. Told by the judge that he was accused of killing innocent people, Saddam pointed to the scores of bodies found this week, the victims of sectarian killings. "Just yesterday, 80 bodies of Iraqis were discovered in Baghdad," he said. "Aren't they innocent?"

Not once did Saddam address the case at hand, in which he and seven co-defendants are charged with jailing, torturing and executing 148 men and boys from the Shiite village of Dujail in the 1980s. The expression on the face of the presiding judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, turned from bemusement to fatigue to fury. After a few heated exchanges, and after cutting off the sound at least nine times, the judge barred reporters from the court for more than 90 minutes, allowing them to return only after Saddam had finished speaking.