Hussein Is Unruly as Trial Resumes

Clark, who was attorney general under President Lyndon B. Johnson, had rushed to Baghdad on Sunday with Najeeb Nauimi, a former Qatari justice minister, to join the defense. The 77-year-old Texan said nothing during the trial, while the judge wrestled with documentation that would admit him to the defense table. Court officials finally located a translator, who complained that Clark's legal rsum was in type too small to read. Clark finally volunteered a wallet identification card from the American Bar Association to prove his credentials as a lawyer.

Clark's entry into what was intended to be an Iraqi-only proceeding brought sharp criticism from a spokesman for the government, but Clark said after the day's events that he was there to do what he could to see that there was a fair trial, which he said was necessary for international legitimacy.

Ensuring fairness would be "extremely difficult," he said in an interview on CNN. "The passions in the country are at fever pitch. . . . How can you ask a witness to come in when there's a death threat?"

Hussein and his co-defendants sat in three pens surrounded by waist-high wooden railings in the center of the court. They were able to speak when they wished -- some raised their hands, as if in school, before voicing complaints.

"This judge is giving too much leeway to Saddam," grumbled Ali Dabagh, a National Assembly member watching the proceedings in the court's VIP section. "He should respect the Iraqis and the victims' feelings."

Indeed, in Dujail, 35 miles north of Baghdad, demonstrators held pictures of their slain relatives and demanded Hussein's swift execution. In counterpoint to this, Arabic television showed demonstrators in Tikrit, in Hussein's home region, chanting slogans of loyalty to the deposed ruler.

In the capital, the trial's resumption was greeted by a succession of explosions, a sign of the furtive insurgency that includes many Iraqis still loyal to Hussein. But in a possible indication that Hussein's effect on Iraqis is weakening, members of Iraq's National Assembly were meeting nearby, refusing to interrupt their work. One assembly member said it was crucial that the trial set a precedent in Iraq for judicial independence and fairness.

"Within our culture, no one is happy with the trial. Everybody wants to see Saddam Hussein hanged immediately," said Kassim Daoud, an independent assembly member from Najaf. "But through this trial, we are giving a civilized example that justice is justice and we can do it in a civilized way.

"The trial might have an effect of encouraging the insurgency," he acknowledged. "So far this morning there have been three" -- he was interrupted by a deep boom -- "make that four explosions."