World

Red Cross Checks On Saddam

February 22, 2004 / 11:46 AM EST / CBS/AP

The international Red Cross visited Saddam Hussein in jail for the first time Saturday, and the ousted dictator wrote a letter to his family that will be delivered once the United States confirms it does not contain any hidden messages to his followers.

The announcement of the visit came after the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, cited U.N. estimates that it may take 15 months to arrange elections - far longer than demanded by leading Iraqi politicians.

The two-member International Committee of the Red Cross delegation, which included a doctor, spoke to Saddam privately at an undisclosed location in Iraq, spokeswoman Nada Doumani said. The announcement dispelled rumors the Americans had spirited Saddam out of the country following his Dec. 13 capture in a hole near Tikrit.

"The aim of this visit is to track and monitor the conditions of detention and treatment of the detainee," Doumani said from Amman, Jordan. "We want to see whether he is getting enough food and water and also to check his health condition and to give him the possibility to write a message to his family - which he did."

"Having declared Saddam Hussein to be a prisoner of war, the Pentagon is complying with the Third Geneva Convention by allowing the International Red Cross to visit him," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, who teaches international law, "but that status raises serious questions about his interrogation, his trial, and a score of other rights that have not yet been resolved."

Saddam's letter, presumably to his daughters in Jordan, will be delivered after American authorities make sure it contains no instructions to his followers or other banned messages.

In other developments:

One Iraqi translator was killed and at least four U.S. troops were wounded Saturday in one of several scattered incidents in central Iraq.

Al Qaeda was behind last year's assassination of a leading Iraqi Shiite Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim, his brother said in remarks published Saturday. Al Qaada "wants to ignite sectarian conflict," Abdel Aziz al-Hakim told the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat in an interview. "We (in the Iraqi Governing Council) have intelligence proving that they are heading in this direction." Ayatollah al-Hakim was the leader of the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. He was killed by a car bomb as he left a mosque in the city of Najaf on Aug. 31. The blast killed 124 other people. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim now leads SCIRI and is a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council.

The New York Times reports in its Saturday editions that the most active terrorist network inside Iraq appears to be operating mostly apart from Al Qaeda. The newspaper cites senior American officials as saying trhere ;may be a significant divide between the groups.

Saturday's Times also says the CIA has acknowledged that it didn't give the U.N. information about 21 of the 105 sites in Iraq singled out by American intelligence before the war as the most highly suspected of housing illicit weapons. The newspaper points out that the acknowledgment, in a Jan. 20 letter to Senator Carl Levin (D, Mich), contradicts public statements before the war by top Bush administration officials.

About 150 troops left northern Japan for Kuwait on Saturday to join Japanese forces already engaged in a humanitarian mission to help rebuild Iraq. The departing troops were the largest ground contingent yet mobilized for a controversial operation that will involve 1,000 Japanese military personnel, including air and naval forces.

The death of a British weapons inspector was ruled a suicide by a judge who investigated the political storm over intelligence on Iraqi weapons. But some skeptics are questioning that verdict, arguing that it's unlikely government scientist David Kelly bled to death from a self-inflicted cut to his wrist.

The international Red Cross made no statement about Saddam's health or conditions of confinement, routine practice for the organization. Doumani said the Red Cross would periodically visit Saddam as long as he remains in custody, but she gave no further details.

The Red Cross has visited more than 10,000 prisoners in Iraq since March, even though fewer than 100 have been formally classified POWs, spokeswoman Antonella Notari said.

Red Cross operations in Iraq were curtailed, however, after a suicide bomber exploded a vehicle outside ICRC headquarters in Baghdad on Oct. 27. The bombing prompting the organization to evacuate its international staff.

The visit to Saddam came as the Americans and their Iraqi partners struggle to find a formula for constituting a new government to take power June 30. A plan to pick members of a new legislature through regional caucuses has been all but scrapped after the country's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, insisted that the lawmakers be chosen in a national election.

Shiites, believed to comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, are anxious for a vote to affirm their power after decades of suppression by the Sunni Muslim minority.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan concurred with the Americans that an election by June 30 was impossible. The United Nations is hoping the Iraqi leadership will come up with a new formula for establishing a transitional government.

Washington favors expanding the U.S.-appointed, 25-member Iraqi Governing Council to rule the country until elections can be held.

Bremer, the U.S. administrator, told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television station that the United Nations believed it could take up to 15 months to hold elections. The United Nations has announced no such estimate publicly.

Bremer cited the absence of election laws, voter lists and reliable census data as obstacles to a quick election. The remarks were made Friday and broadcast Saturday.

"These technical problems will take time to fix," Bremer said. "The U.N. estimates somewhere between a year and 15 months. It might be that it could be sped up a little bit. But there are real important technical problems as to why elections are not possible."

The Governing Council is divided on how to constitute a government and how soon elections could be held. Some see a delay of seven or eight months, while others say it would take at least a year to prepare for elections.

In a further obstacle to an agreement, the Kurds have submitted proposals to the draft interim constitution, due to take effect at the end of this month, guaranteeing broad autonomy for their self-ruled region. The demands included maintenance of their own "Kurdistan National Guard," parliament and tax system.

Iraqi and American authorities had hoped to keep the Kurdish issue out of the interim constitution and resolve the matter during deliberations on a permanent national charter set for next year. Bremer met Saturday with Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani to discuss the Kurdish demands.