Thirty members of the House of Representatives have cosponsored a resolution calling for an international court to prosecute Iraq’s Saddam Hussein for violations of the Geneva Convention.
The resolution, introduced by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), also declared that “under no circumstances” should the anti-Hussein coalition “agree to an arrangement whereby Saddam Hussein would resign as president of Iraq in exchange for his not being prosecuted for war crimes.”
“We must not forget the way Saddam treated the airmen who were captured during the first days of the war, how they were beaten and paraded in front of television cameras,” Engel said at a Capitol Hill news conference Thursday.
He said Hussein also was guilty of other atrocities such as the Scud attacks against civilian population, environmental terrorism and the torture and murder of Kuwaitis.
U.S. military lawyers were believed to be in Kuwait City on Thursday collecting evidence of Iraqi atrocities.
The United States at this point is not expected to press for a war-crimes trial, but would turn over the evidence it is gathering to Kuwait if that country seeks such a trial.
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