Saddam Hussein argues with the chief judge while testifying during his trial in Baghdad in March 2006. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq were developing weapons of mass destruction prior to the ousting of Hussein.[AFP]

Saddam and six co-defendants face a possible death penalty for the killings of tens of thousands of Kurds during the Anfal campaign, a massive military assault in northern Iraq in the 1980s.

The offensive leveled hundreds of villages and saw the widespread use of chemical weapons by Saddam's regime. Residents were herded into prison camps where many of the men disappeared and were executed, according to prosecutors.

Saddam is still waiting a verdict on October 16 in the first case against him _ the nine-month-long trial over the killings of 148 Shiites in a 1980s crackdown on the town of Dujail. In that case as well, he and seven other co-defendants could face the death penalty.

The Anfal trial, which began in August, is likely to take months as well. The campaign was on a far greater scale than the Dujail crackdown, with anywhere from 50,000 to 180,000 Kurds killed.

In Monday's hearing, Saddam clutched his Quran, Islam's holy book, as the chief judge argued with one of the lawyers on technicalities pertaining to witnesses taking the stand. Saddam's chief lawyer, Iraqi Khalil al-Dulaimi, was not present, but lawyers for the other defendants were.

The trial's resumption on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States bore a tinge of irony in light of a recent U.S. Senate committee report that found no link between Saddam and the al-Qaida terror network that carried out the attacks that killed some 3,000 people.

The Bush administration had argued that a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was needed to unseat Saddam because he possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties to al-Qaida.

Even as recently as an August 21 news conference, President Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with (now--slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab) al-Zarqawi."

Saddam's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction was debunked after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion when none could be found.

Yet the Anfal case pointed to his regime's alleged use of poison gas against Iraqi citizens.

The proceedings, which opened on August 21, heard grim testimony from Kurdish witnesses who told of entire families killed in chemical weapons attacks against their villages. They said survivors plunged their faces into milk to end the pain from the blinding gas or fled into the hills on mules as military helicopters fired on them.

The chief judge, Abdullah al-Amiri, adjourned the trial just two days later and ordered it be resumed on September 11 to consider defense appeals over the legitimacy of the tribunal.

The 1987-88 crackdown was aimed at crushing independence-minded Kurdish militias and clearing all Kurds from the northern region along the border with Iran. Saddam accused the Kurds of helping Iran in its war with Iraq.

Kurdish survivors say many villages were razed and countless young men disappeared.

They also accuse the army of using prohibited mustard gas and nerve agents. But the trial does not deal with the most notorious gassing _ the March 1988 attack on Halabja that killed an estimated 5,000 Kurds. That incident will be part of a separate investigation by the Iraqi High Tribunal.