BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A defiant Saddam Hussein quarreled with judges and scuffled with guards at the opening of his long-awaited trial Wednesday, rejecting the tribunal's right to judge him and insisting he is still the president of Iraq.\nSitting inside a white pen with metal bars, Saddam appeared gaunt and frail and his salt-and-pepper beard was unkempt as he pleaded innocent to charges of murder, torture, forced expulsions and illegal detentions. He wore a suit with a white shirt and no tie.\nGone were the Homburg hat, the cigar, the shotgun fired from a reviewing stand. So were a few pounds after nearly two years in an American military prison. Still, the swagger and the smirk remained, the bearing of a man accustomed to 23 years of unchallenged power.\nIf convicted, the 68-year-old Saddam and seven of his regime's henchmen who appeared with him in the hearing could face the death penalty for their role in the 1982 killing of nearly 150 people from the mainly Shiite town of Dujail north of Baghdad after a failed attempt on Saddam's life.\nIraqis and much of the Arab world watched glitchy television coverage of the proceedings intently, watching Saddam strike a pose reminiscent of the once-ubiquitous television pictures of him sitting at the head of a table surrounded by "yes" men.\n"Since the fall of the regime, we have been waiting for this trial," said Aqeel al-Ubaidi, a resident of Dujail. "The trial won't bring back those who died, but at least it will help put out the fire and anger inside us."\nWednesday's session, held under tight security, was testy from the start, when the judge asked Saddam to take the stand first.\nAs the courtroom fell silent, Saddam got up from his chair and took the podium, holding a copy of the Quran. He refused to state his name for the record and turned the question back on the presiding judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd whose identity was revealed to the public only on the day of the trial.\n"Who are you? I want to know who you are," Saddam demanded.\n"I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect to its people, and I retain my constitutional right as the president of Iraq," he said, brushing off Amin's attempts to interrupt him. "Neither do I recognize the body that has designated and authorized you, nor the aggression because all that has been built on false basis is false."\nAfter repeatedly refusing to give his name, Saddam finally sat. Amin read his name for him, calling him the "former president of Iraq."\n"I said I'm the president of Iraq," Saddam snapped back. "I did not say deposed."\nLater, Saddam stood, smiling, and exchanged greetings with other defendants during a break in the proceedings. He then asked to step out of the room, but when two guards tried to grab his arms to escort him out, he angrily shook them off.\nThe guards, wearing blue bulletproof vests, tried to grab him again, and Saddam struggled to free himself. Saddam and the guards shoved each other and yelled for about a minute. In the end, he was allowed to walk independently out of the room, with the two guards behind him.\nThe three-hour session ended with Amin announcing an adjournment until Nov. 28.
The trial was broadcast on satellite stations with a 20-minute delay. But technical quality was poor, with the sound cutting out frequently and the picture going blank several times. Reporters at the courtroom struggled to follow the proceedings from behind a bulletproof glass partition.\nThe Iraqi government did not explain the 20-minute delay, but one effect could have been to cut out scenes like the scuffle, which did not appear on tape.\n"My father is brave, a lion, I am proud of him," said one of Saddam's daughters, Raghad Saddam Hussein.\n"He is a man who dedicated his life to serve his country, he was brave in his youth, so how can he be afraid now?" she told the Dubai-based Arabiyah satellite channel from Jordan.\nReaction to Saddam's trial varied in Iraq, where his loyalists, together with hardcore members of his Baath party and feared security services are an important faction of a Sunni-led insurgency wracking Iraq for the past 2 1/2 years.\nIn Baghdad, Shiite construction worker Salman Zaboun Shanan sat with his family at home in the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, having taken the day off from work to watch the trial.\nWhen Saddam appeared on television, his wife spat in disgust.\n"I hope he is executed, and that anyone who suffered can take a piece of his flesh," said Shanan, who was jailed during Saddam's rule, as was his wife, Sabiha Hassan, and several of their sons.
