CRIME TIME

French lawyer to defend Saddam

The French lawyer known for defending Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and guerrilla Carlos the Jackal says he had accepted the job of defending Saddam Hussein and suggested his strategy would focus on the role played by the United States and other countries in supporting the Iraqi leader in the 1980s.
'We know very well that the Anglo-Americans armed Saddam Hussein, that the chemical weapons were sold by the allies," Verges said in a telephone interview. Washington helped Saddam obtain intelligence and military equipment and, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control document in the U.S. Senate record, Iraq also obtained from the United States biological agents that could have been turned into weapons.
Verges singled out U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a key advocate of last year's U.S.-led war to oust Saddam, for his role 20 years ago as a special envoy of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

[In an interview with ABCNews, Verges stated, "The United States considers they are the master of the world and they are not to be judged."]