Court TV Host: A defiant Saddam Hussein appeared before Iraqi investigative judges today to hear the charges against him and declared, "I am Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq." Discuss his first court appearance, and what lies ahead for the former Iraqi dictator, with Walter Slocombe, former senior advisor for security sector and defense affairs to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Court TV Host: Welcome, Mr. Slocombe, thanks for being our guest today.

Walter Slocombe: I'm glad to be here. It is an important step when a dictator like Saddam has to face a judge to answer for his actions.

Question from WWF: Will they be trying Saddam according to the US justice system or Iraqi law? And is there a difference?

Walter Slocombe: Iraqi law. The difference is really quite basic. The US system is what we call an adversarial system, in which the two sides are represented by lawyers or represent themselves, and the judge is very much a neutral figure, whose task is to hear two sides of the case and make a decision. The Iraqi system, which is based on the system of justice in almost all of continental Europe, is one in which the judge takes a much more active role, and his or her job is to try and find what happened, ask questions, summon witnesses, and in particular to examine the proposed defendant. So it's really quite a different process, but both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. It's not a question of the Iraqi system being any less fair or just than the common law system, it's just different. It almost is a different sense of what justice is about. The American or British system has two sides to every story, and the best way to get the truth of a story is for two advocates to fight it out. Whereas the European system, of which the Iraqi system is a variant, is much more attracted to the idea that there is an absolute. If a smart, neutral judge tries to find out that truth by assembling all the evidence he can, you're more likely to get an accurate result.

Question from googler: But even though it's Iraqi law, the U.S. is still in charge of holding Saddam?

Walter Slocombe: That's my understanding, that the physical, mechanical aspect of running custody remains a US function. But the legal control of whether he's to be held is with the Iraqis, just as is often the case when you have a federal prisoner in a state jail.

Question from cheryl: How long do you think it will be before Iraq will be able to take physical control over Saddam?

Walter Slocombe: I have no idea. Quite possibly not until the trial is over. It may be, and in fact I think it would be a good idea, if there were some shared custody such as having Iraqi guards as well as Americans. I don't know what the plan is for that.

Question from Salducci: What happens if Saddam is let go?

Walter Slocombe: If he's acquitted by the Iraqi court, there are other people (including the Kuwaitis) who want to try him. Logically, if he's tried and acquitted he's free to go but that doesn't mean other people can't try him for different charges.

Question from Sandyc: Are they absolutely sure that this man is Saddam? With all of his supposed doubles out there, they are sure?

Walter Slocombe: I think they're sure, both on the basis of medical records and evidence.

Question from Salducci: How long will the trial last?

Walter Slocombe: Probably a long time. Big trials tend to. The continental system tends to produce even longer trials than ours, and that's a good thing because at least as important in a trial like this is showing to Iraqis and to the world of showing evidence of Saddam's crimes -- showing the world, and Iraqis, and people in general what he in fact did.

Question from yellowmellow: Did Saddam's appearance and his attitude today surprise you? And didn't he seem to be asserting a kind of control over the proceedings?

Walter Slocombe: Remember that right after he was captured, he met with a group of senior Iraqi leaders and their report was that he was then exactly as he was today -- very defiant, asserting that no one had a right to try him, and that he'd done nothing wrong. People like Saddam tend to be badly out of touch with reality and that continues to be the case. He's obviously been well-treated, looks healthy, and lost weight. But remember that most of the Nuremburg defendants took essentially the same position. There are a few noteworthy exceptions, but most people who have been tried as war criminals in these kinds of charges have been unrepentant and defiant. The clearest contemporary example is Milosevic, who has been treated exactly this way. But it was also true of Eichmann, who was tried by the Israelis.

Court TV Host: But isn't the big difference between Nuremberg especially and even Yugoslavia, that the hostilities themselves have not ended and there's still a great deal of civil unrest and uncertainty here?

Walter Slocombe: That's the difference between Iraq and Germany in 1946, not actually the difference between the first of the Hague trials for the Balkans. It's irrelevant to this. Whatever's going to happen in Iraq, Saddam is not coming back.

Question from wn: If Saddam killed people in the harsh but official capacity of the legal government of Iraq, then are we going to try any world leader who's official actions of the state result in deaths? Is President Bush going to be tried for starting a "war of aggression?"

Walter Slocombe: I think what the whole history of war crimes trials since Nuremberg, since 1946, is to establish that there is a clear distinction between the legal use of state force and the illegal. And while there are hard cases, there are some things like the massive use of poison gas against innocent civilians and the systematic murder not only of political opponents inside and outside Iraq, but of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in suppressing various rebellions against Saddam, that clearly fall on the illegal side.

Question from cheryl: Does the Iraqi system include hearings like we have? like pre-trial or grand jury? rules of evidence? Things such as that.

Walter Slocombe: Actually, even more than the common law Anglo-Saxon system. Mostly pretrial hearings and what we would call hearings. Conceptually, it's more like a grand jury, but that's not how most grand juries operate in the United States. Before the formal trial, it's an opportunity to examine witnesses including the defendant and gather documentary evidence. How much of that process will be public depends on the opinion of the Iraqi court, but I suspect some part of that process will be public but by no means all of it. It's all supposed to be recorded, and in fact the examining judge will write it out in longhand, though he won't necessarily preside at the trial.

Question from gabby: What if the trial takes a route that the U.S. strongly disagrees with -- will we see interference and the limits of sovereignty?

Walter Slocombe: I doubt it. I don't think there's going to be any great pressure in Iraq to let Saddam off. Because I think even the Baathists who are still fighting realize that he's a liability. In fact, I think the main reason to be sure he's in good custody is to not keep him from escaping, but to keep him alive for the verdict.

Court TV Host: Hearing today, though, about public opinion in Iraq -- split something like 40% - 40% over whether he ought to be executed, does make you wonder whether any judgment by the court will have a popular support?

Walter Slocombe: The 40% of the population want to see him dead -- there's every reason to see him protected. And I think also this goes back to the point about one function of the trial being to lay before the Iraqi people the actual record of his crimes, because while many people in Iraq were directly affected by his oppression, it's still the case that many Iraqis would be surprised and troubled when they learn details of what he did. That was certainly the experience with discovering and the recovery of the mass graves.

Question from BE: On TV Saddam looks confused. Does he know what is going on?

Walter Slocombe: Without knowing a) what he looked like before, and b) what he was saying, I think it's hard to make a judgment on that. He clearly, not from his appearance today, but his conduct, is clearly that of a madman in the same sense that say Hitler or Stalin was. On one level, he's totally rational and calculating, but on a fundamental level he's simply wacko. That naturally would mean that he may well be confused, and rational, and defiant all at the same time.

Question from BE: Where were his lawyers educated?

Walter Slocombe: My understanding is that he has some sort of volunteer lawyers, including, I think, an American but certainly a Westerner. But what the final story is on who will represent him I think has not been sorted out. By volunteers, I mean people who have announced they are his lawyers without necessarily having talked to him. As you probably know, Milosevic is representing himself. And one issue I assume is whether the court in Iraq will permit Saddam to do that.

Question from msmich1466: Do you think the new Iraqi government will convict him? I have to wonder about that since he ruled with fear and some of the new officials are being murdered?

Walter Slocombe: For form's sake you have to say the Iraqi court will decide the case on the evidence. They will have no reluctance to convict because if they were fearful they wouldn't be in these jobs at all. I'm sure they're fearful in that they're sensible people and they realize the risks they're running, but they've decided to run those risks.

Question from Any closing thoughts?

Walter Slocombe: You've had interesting, thoughtful questions.

Court TV Host: Thank you.