Senate Urges U.N. Trial of Hussein

WASHINGTON — The Senate, calling Saddam Hussein an international war criminal guilty of “crimes against humanity,” voted 93-0 Friday to urge creation of a United Nations tribunal to indict, arrest and try him.

The Clinton administration expressed support for the concept.

The nonbinding Senate resolution was a largely symbolic gesture, although some supporters said it could lay the groundwork for later direct U.S. action to topple the Iraqi president.

President Clinton’s spokesman, Mike McCurry, said the administration will “study it very carefully.”

At the State Department, spokesman James P. Rubin said, “We do support an effort to document Iraqi war crimes, including those of Saddam Hussein. . . . We are supportive of this idea.”

Congress remains deeply divided over how to proceed against the Iraqi leader, with conservatives grumbling about the U.N.-brokered accord that has so far averted air strikes and some lawmakers urging more direct action to unseat Hussein. But there was little controversy over the war-criminal resolution, sponsored by Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

It was discussed only briefly late Thursday and voted on Friday without any debate.

The House has not considered the resolution. Dorgan said the Senate vote made a strong statement.

“We think it will be useful,” Dorgan said.

He said he hoped that the Senate action “would provide some stimulus” for the Clinton administration to present such a notion to the United Nations.

“There’s not a lot we can do,” Dorgan said. “Is this born of frustration? It is born of a desire to see the evidence of Saddam Hussein’s use of weapons of mass destruction. I think it’s important for the rest of the world to see the evidence.”

Dorgan said the U.N. should have acted to create such a tribunal at the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. U.N. tribunals have been established to investigate war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda.

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The resolution calls for the U.N. tribunal to be convened “for the purpose of indicting, prosecuting and imprisoning Saddam Hussein.”

“It is obvious that taking Saddam Hussein into custody is a very complex matter and perhaps impossible without an enormous military source,” Specter said.

But, he added, “the indictment itself, the trial, even in absentia, could give the United States a high moral ground and warrant our action in toppling Saddam Hussein.”

In Baghdad, the Iraqi government responded by saying the U.N. should instead form a tribunal to try Clinton--for war crimes against the Iraqi people.