Saddam Hussein has no illusions, his chief lawyer says. As he sits in his prison cell reading the Koran and writing poetry, Hussein knows the inevitable is coming—a death sentence handed down by the Iraqi court trying him on charges of crimes against humanity.‘‘Saddam Hussein is convinced of this,’’ the lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said in an interview here. ‘‘He’s told us many times we won’t be able to change this. He knows the sentence has been issued from Washington, and if there’s an even greater punishment than the death sentence, he’ll get it.’’Yet Hussein refuses simply to submit to the fate that awaits him, Dulaimi said, for he believes there is a way out. According to Hussein’s logic, President Bush will use the court’s sentence as leverage to try to persuade him to tamp down the insurgency, so desperate are the Americans to stanch their losses. Hussein believes the Americans might even reinstall him as president of Iraq, his lawyer said.‘‘He’ll be the last resort; they’ll knock on his door,’’ Dulaimi said, tapping a pair of gold-rimmed glasses against his knee. ‘‘The United States will use this sentence to pressure Saddam to save it from its mess.’’Such are the thoughts that appear to be meandering through the mind of Hussein, 69, as his first trial nears its end. Though the idea of salvation may seem quixotic at best, the latest in a long line of delusions that have helped land Hussein where he is today, Dulaimi asserts that Hussein’s hopes do not lie merely in the realm of fantasy. On the contrary, he said, it is the Americans who are now beginning to wake up from a dream world, realising their invasion has delivered Iraq into the hands of conservative Shi’ites in both Iraq and Iran.‘‘The Iranian influence is a threat to American interests,’’ Dulaimi said. “The only person standing in the face of Iran, which is an enemy of America, is Saddam Hussein.’’Dulaimi, 44, a Sunni Arab, leads a team of a dozen that includes a Lebanese woman and a prominent American. American officials say that the leading defence lawyers have been offered safe accommodations in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, or, as an alternative, 24-hour protection by Interior Ministry bodyguards. But Dulaimi said that the lack of security had forced him to move to Amman and to fly into Baghdad only for trial sessions. Even then, he will stay only in the Green Zone, where the courthouse is located.Dulaimi said he had never met Hussein before taking the case and had never received any favours from the former president. A criminal lawyer since 1992, he said he approached the imprisoned Hussein out of a desire to defend the legitimate ruler of Iraq and expose the sham of the American occupation.Dulaimi said the prosecutors have wrongfully accused Hussein of nearly a third of the 148 deaths—45 are still alive or died under other circumstances. As for the others? Hussein did order their executions, and had every right to do so, he said. ‘‘They deserved to die, according to Iraqi law,’’ Dulaimi said. ‘‘They were plotting to kill a president.’’EDWARD WONG
