Saddam: 'I Am President Of Iraq'

(CBS/AP)  The chief judge formally charged Saddam Hussein on Monday with crimes against humanity, including torture of women and children, murder and the illegal arrest of 399 people in a crackdown against Shiites in the 1980s. A defiant Saddam refused to enter a plea.

Saddam, wearing a dark suit and white shirt, smiled slightly as he was led into court, CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports. He was alone in the defendants' pen as the charges were read, stood holding a copy of the Quran and insisted he was still Iraq's president, saying he did not recognize the court.

"Your honor, you gave a long report. That report can't be summed up by saying guilty or not," Saddam, dressed in a black suit, said after chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman read the charges list and asked for a plea.

"Your honor is now before Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq," Saddam said. "I am the president of Iraq by the will of the Iraqis, and I remain president of Iraq up to this moment. I respect the will of the Iraqi people and I will defend it with honor in the face of the collaborators and in the face of America.

"I do not recognize the collaborators that they brought to appoint a court and put forward a law with retroactive effect against the head of state, who is protected by the constitution and the law," he said. Saddam has used this defense throughout proceedings, Pizzey notes.

The judge told him he was a "former president" and instructed the court to enter a plea of not guilty, Pizzey reports.

Abdel-Rahman entered a plea of not guilty for Saddam.

With the reading of charges, the trial, which began Oct. 19, enters a new phase, with the defense presenting its case. After hearing from five defense witnesses in the five-hour session, the court adjourned until Tuesday.

Saddam and seven former members of his regime are on trial over a crackdown against residents of the town of Dujail, and they face a possible execution by hanging if found guilty.

Under the Iraqi trial system, the court first hears plaintiffs outline their complaint against the defendants and the prosecutions' evidence against them. Then the judges decide on specific charges, and the defense begins making its case.

In other recent developments:

The U.S. military says insurgents have shot down a U.S. military helicopter, killing two soldiers. No further details have yet been released about the incident, which U.S. military officials say happened Sunday during fighting in Youssifiyah, about 12 miles south of Baghdad.

U.S. forces and helicopters killed 16 suspected al-Qaida insurgents in four weekend raids, including one man who allegedly led a militant attack that last month downed a U.S. attack helicopter and killed its two crew, the military said Monday.

Elsewhere, eight Iraqis were killed Monday, including four teachers on their way to school and a civilian struck by a roadside bomb that hit an oil tanker.

Two suicide car bombs exploded Sunday near a main checkpoint leading to Baghdad's international airport, killing 14 Iraqis and injuring at least another six in the latest attack on the airport road. That attack, along with five roadside bombs, killed a total of 26 people and injured at least 66 in the Iraqi capital.

Gunmen killed the son of Iraq's top judge along with two of his bodyguards and dumped their bodies in Baghdad, officials said Saturday. Other attacks outside the capital killed five Iraqis and a U.S. soldier.

Security forces arrested hundreds of Dujail residents, including entire families, in the wake of a 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the town. Witnesses, including women, have recounted being tortured while in prison, farmlands were razed in retaliation and 148 Shiites were sentenced to death in connection to the shooting attack on Saddam. All 148 were killed, either dying under interrogation or executed.

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