Inside The Saddam Trial

This story was written by CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.

Saddam and Judge Raou Abdel Rahman shouted at each other for several minutes before the judge made the decision to close the trial to the public.

The trouble began when Saddam delivered what was essentially a rallying cry for the insurgency, urging those responsible for bombing the mosques to join forces in a jihad against the occupying forces and the United States.

"I call on the people to start resisting the invaders instead of killing each other," Saddam said.

The judge rebuked him: "Don't make a political speech. Now you are a defendant."

Saddam replied: "If it was not for politics, I would not be here and neither would you."

The deposed dictator, dressed in a black suit and white-collared shirt, waved his finger and shook his arm forcefully as he argued with the judge.

The judge responded in kind, snapping at the lawyers and letting everyone know who was in charge. Before he ordered the media blackout, the judge repeatedly cut the audio feed to the press, forcing journalists to struggle to follow what was being said.

The whole scene played out over about 35 minutes before the judge took the drastic step of ordering a blackout.

The media sits at the back of the court behind bullet-proof glass. As soon as the session was closed, guards in the courtroom drew the gold curtains across the glass, shutting out the scene in the courtroom and leaving the media in darkness — both literally and figuratively.

The media remained in the building, working from a press room two floors below the court, until word came that the trial had been adjourned until April 5.

Earlier, the trial resumed in typical fashion when defendant Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti began his testimony with a long, convoluted rhetoric that would never have been tolerated in a Western court.

The half-brother of Saddam Hussein and former intelligence chief was warned by the judge not to stray from the case at hand, but that's exactly what he did from the moment he started talking.

Barzan launched an interminable odyssey that covered everything from his failing health to the wonders of Saddam Hussein as a leader. (He assured the court that it was rare to find a leader that powerful and respected who was also unselfish.)

Barzan also denounced the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the "tyranny" of the Bush administration.

The judge warned him repeatedly to remember this was a criminal case and he needed to address the charges against him, but he simply prevailed upon the judge to be patient and allow him to paint a "complete picture."

Somewhere in this commentary there was a complete denial of any involvement in anything to do with the killings in Dujail in 1982 — from imprisonment of innocents to investigations and interrogations of those accused to the execution of some 140 Shiites.

Perhaps the most ironic twist of the morning was the manner in which Barzan, a secular Sunni, interspersed his commentary with passages from the Koran. That at times drew laughter from the Iraqi journalists listening in the gallery.