Saddam�s Prison Letter

The captive Iraqi tells his family to �say hello to everyone��and his lawyer claims that the former dictator�s human rights are being violated in jail

Military censors have blacked out nine of the 14 lines. But in what remains of his letter, Saddam Hussein assures his family that �my spirit and my morale, they are high, thanks to greatness of God.�

The message�apparently the first and only letter the former Iraqi dictator has sent to his family since his capture last December�is on a standard �family message� form provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). It is addressed simply �to my daughter,� and was delivered to the family by the ICRC after they visited Saddam on Feb. 21. The letter, apparently in Saddam�s handwriting, was shown to NEWSWEEK by Muhammed al Rushadan, a Jordanian lawyer retained by Saddam�s family.

Rushadan is currently on a visit to the United States, where he hopes to make the case that his client's human rights are being violated and that he's being held in violation of the Geneva Conventions. In addition, says Rushadan, he believes Saddam is being mistreated like some of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were. "There are fresh wounds on his body," he said, citing a Red Cross document he claims to have. "I say to the ICRC that you should do your job under Article 10 of the Geneva Conventions, or you should quit your job."

The document in question, produced by Rushadan on Sunday shortly before the lawyer left for New York to lobby the U.S. media, actually turns out to be what the ICRC calls a "capture card," a form that detainees fill out and which authorities use to report their detention to the Red Cross, which makes inspection visits and carries letters for prisoners. Apparently signed by Saddam and dated January 21, 2004,�more than five weeks after U.S. forces pulled him from a spider hole near his hometown of Tikrit�the card carries two check marks in the four boxes listed under the heading �Internee�s/detainee�s health.� One of the selected boxes lists the prisoner as being in �good health;� the other notes that he is �slightly wounded.�

Rushadan seizes on the "slightly wounded" notation to say that this proves Saddam had been mistreated after his capture more than a month earlier, saying that the light wounds he suffered being pulled out of his bolthole in December would have healed by then: "These must be fresh wounds." The lawyer offers no other proof to back up his assertion, and it is uncertain whether the capture card was filled out by Saddam himself or whether it represents an independent assessment of his condition. U.S. military authorities have said repeatedly that the Iraqi is being treated humanely.

Aside from the section on health, the card lists his name, his occupation ("President of the Republic of Iraq") and his rank ("Field Marshal".) The form does not note whether he is a prisoner of war, civilian internee, security detainee, or common law prisoner�the four choices on the card. It also does not detail his place of detention, a secret prison somewhere in Iraq, probably a facility close to Baghdad International Airport.

Nada Doumani, a spokesman for the ICRC in Iraq, said that the capture card is a blank form that the agency distributes and its staff are not in a position to verify the information in it. She had no comment about Saddam's condition, citing ICRC policy to discuss the conditions of detention only with the detaining authority. Saddam, she said, was first visited by ICRC representatives on Feb. 21, a month after the date on the capture card, and has been visited twice since then�about the frequency that is normal for Red Cross visits to detainees. She confirmed also that Saddam is in Iraq, though could not divulge where.

Rushadan also says that family members are distressed that they have only received one letter from Saddam, although they have heard from the ICRC that Saddam said he had written others. The �family message� shown to NEWSWEEK, says the lawyer, was delivered to Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghed Hussein, in Amman, Jordan. Saddam's two other daughters, Rana and Hala, are also in Amman, and his first wife, Sajida Khairallah Telfah, is in Qatar.

The letter begins, "In the name of God the Merciful," followed by six lines that are blacked out. Then it resumes "To my small family and my big family, salaam alekum." Then another three lines are blacked out, followed by "As for my spirit and my morale, they are high, thanks to greatness of God. And say hello to everyone." The signed letter is heavily censored by U.S. military authorities who are holding Saddam, so much so that the substance of it is almost entirely missing. "Two-thirds of it are blacked out," Rushadan says, "and there are only 17 words you can read, there's not enough to understand the meaning very well."

According to the Red Cross�s Doumani, the Geneva Conventions do give the detaining authority the right to censor prisoners� letters. "I don't think all the messages that he has written to the family have been delivered," she says. "I can't confirm how many others there were, but it's important to stress that this is clearly because of censorship and is not the fault of the ICRC."

Meanwhile, Saddam�s lawyers�Rushadan is just one of 20 authorized by Saddam�s wife, Sajida, to act on the prisoner�s behalf�have already demanded the right to visit him and to have the estimated $750,000 seized with him returned to his family. (At least eight of the lawyers are Jordanians, and three are foreigners, including an American, Curtis Doebbler from Washington, D.C., a former legal adviser to the Palestinian Authority, and French attorney Emmanuel Ludot.)

The onetime dictator may soon need all of that legal expertise. Iraqi officials have demanded Saddam be transferred to the Iraqi authority after the deadline for the handover of sovereignty on June 30, although American officials have said no decision has been made on that as yet. President George W. Bush himself ruled out a speedy handover unless security conditions warrant. Salem Chalabi, who is head of the war crimes court in Iraq, has claimed that Americans would hand Saddam over if the Iraqis proved they could hold him safely. Chalabi said he could not say when a trial would begin, but it might be several months. Still, there's great interest in Iraq in a speedy hearing, and for the past several weeks workers have been rehabilitating a building formerly known as the Saddam Clocktower Museum for use as the courthouse for the trial. The building used to house memorabilia from Saddam's rule; now, as the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, it will bear witness to a more ignominious chapter of his life.

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