Like all court cases, it is a drama unfolding before our very eyes. The woman bluntly said, "May God blind them all", while on the witness stand. If Saddam is found innocent of these charges, he best pray that he's not released back into the Iraqi population. I would not be surprised if he were found innocent, not because I think he is innocent, quite on the contrary. Ultimately, Saddam and his cohorts will be released, because the new Government is as corrupt as his Government. That, is the blunt honest, yet sad truth.

I asked a good friend, who is an elderly Muslim, if he thought Iraq would ever become civilized, and he replied, "The only damn thing that will bring Iraq back to its former glory, if it had one, is to put a very strong man in control. In other words, if you put Saddam back in charge, the chaos that exist today would stop instantly. You see, Saddam was a ruthless tyrant, but he kept people in line."

I don't agree with that assumption, but he did have some interesting points. What say you?

P.S.: More post coming...

The former Iraqi leader and six others are being tried over the Anfal campaign in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in the late 1980s.

The prosecution alleges that up to 180,000 civilians were killed.

Adiba Oula Bayez described the bombardment of her village, Balisan, on 16 April 1987.

She said warplanes dropped bombs that spread a smoke that smelled "like rotten apples".

"Then my daughter Narjis came to me, complaining about pain in her eyes, chest and stomach. When I got close to see what was wrong with her, she threw up all over me," she said.

"When I took her in to wash her face... all my other children were throwing up.

"Then my condition got bad, too. And that's when we realised that the weapon was poisonous and chemical."

She then described how her family was blinded by the attack, sought shelter along with other villagers from Iraqi army fire, and was taken to a detention centre. "I went for four days without eyesight. My children could not see. I was just screaming. On the fifth day I slightly opened my eyes. And it was a terrible scene. My children and my skin had turned black," she said.

Mrs Bayez told the court one of her children had died after the chemical attack, and she had subsequently had two miscarriages.

"May God blind them all," she said, pointing at Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants.

Mrs Bayez is married to one of the men who testified for the prosecution on Tuesday, Ali Mustapha Hama.

The former leader, who faces the death penalty if found guilty of genocide, questioned the witness's account of one alleged chemical attack:

"I wonder if the village in which she lived was struck with chemical weapons, why she was hurt while the others, her two sisters or daughters and a husband - not one of them was hurt? And why those who came to rescue her were not hurt too? Thank you."

The trial has now been adjourned to 11 September.