Let Him Eat Cake

AP: Saddam Says He's on a Hunger Strike---

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein and three former officials in his regime on Tuesday told the court handling their trial that they were on a hunger strike in protest of the judge overseeing the proceedings.

Saddam said he had not eaten in three days, while his former intelligence chief, Ibrahim Barzan, said he had been on strike for two days. Their claims of a hunger strike could not be independently confirmed. The defendants are being held in U.S. detention, and U.S. officials could not immediately be reached to comment.

Investigative judge Raid Juhi did not deny the defendants were refusing food when asked about the strike after the day's three-hour session. "This is an administrative problem that the court is working to verify and it will work also to solve it... with the responsible parties in the custodial authorities," he told reporters.

"But, as you could see, the defendants are in good health," he said.

Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman, who took over the court last month, has worked to impose order in a court where outbursts and arguments have frequently overshadowed the testimony.

At the start of Tuesday's session, Saddam told the judge, "For three days we have been holding a hunger strike protesting against your way of treating us — against you and your masters."

Ibrahim, who wore only his long underwear for the second day in a row, complained that he and the other defendants had been forced to attend the proceedings against their will.

"You brought me by force in my pyjamas and I have been on a hunger strike for two days," he said.

Have you ever noticed how people who committ the most heinous acts (putting people through meat grinders, having rape rooms, torture chambers, and "disappearing" people) become petulant over the smallest things, like having to be tried for these acts. Would they prefer the treatment they had given the citizens of Iraq?