US insists Saddam will receive fair trial in Iraq

The White House says Saddam Hussein will face the justice he denied the Iraqi people.

The United States also dismissed the former dictator's claims at a court hearing yesterday that President George W. Bush was "the real criminal."

"Saddam Hussein is going to say all sorts of things during this trial," White House spokesman Mr Scott McClellan said last night. "What is important is that Saddam Hussein and his band of oppressors are facing justice by the Iraqi people and in an Iraqi court."

Mr McClellan said the trial was the first step to help Iraqis deal with decades of brutality under Saddam and showed the rule of law was now part of a new Iraq.

"Saddam Hussein is going to face justice he denied the Iraqi people, including hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis who were victims of his brutality," he said.

The United States contributed $75 million for the special Iraqi tribunal investigating Saddam and members of his Ba'ath Party.

The television footage of Saddam's hearing in Baghdad to face charges of crimes against humanity was the first of the former Iraqi dictator since US soldiers captured him in December.

Mr Bush, who saw snippets of television coverage of the hearing, made no mention of Saddam at two public events at the White House yesterday.

Doubts among Americans over Mr Bush's decision to oust Saddam by invading Iraq last year, which the president portrays as part of his war on terrorism, have undermined the president's popularity as he fights for re-election in November.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech in New Orleans, repeated his position that Saddam's government had "long-established ties with al-Qaeda." An independent US investigative panel has said it found no evidence of collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda.