[JURIST] Former Baathist military operations officer Rashid Hussein Mohammed claimed during his genocide trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal [official website] Thursday that he was just defending his country against Iran during the Anfal campaign [JURIST news archive] of the late 1980s, and called for US military commanders to be tried for their crimes in the current Iraq war. Mohammed questioned the legality of America's presence in Iraq, while denying that Kurdish ethnic cleansing occurred during the Anfal campaign. He further testified that extreme measures needed to be taken against the Kurds to prevent Iran from destroying dams in northern Iraq.

Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] was one of the original defendants in the Anfal trial but was tried and executed at the end of December for his retaliation against Shiites following a failed assassination attempt in the town of Dujail in 1982. AP has more.