Iraqi Army soldiers from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 8th Iraqi army division, pose with a weapons cache discovered during a combined search Friday March 31, 2006.

Investigative judge Raid Juhi told the Associated Press the charges against Hussein and six others had been filed with another judge, who will review the evidence and order a trial date. Under the Iraqi judicial system, the move is tantamount to an indictment.

"These people were subjected to forced displacement and illegal detentions of thousands of civilians. They were placed in detention centers. The villages were destroyed and burned,” said Juhi, who also said Kurdish homes and houses of worship were leveled.

"Within days the case will be moved to us," said Chief Prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi in an interview with Reuters.

The case involves Saddam's role in Operation Anfal, a three-phase move against northern-Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s. Operation Anfal included the March 16 gassing of Halabja, which killed 5,000 men, women and children. Human rights groups consider the Halabja attack one of the gravest atrocities attributed to Hussein's regime.

Although Human Rights Watch estimates that upwards of 50,000 Kurds were killed during the Anfal campaign, Kurdish authorities say the number is double that figure. But both conclude that multiple-tens of thousands of Iraq’s Kurds were systematically killed in ground offensives and air strikes and that thousands of Kurdish villages were razed and resettled by Arabs.

Saddam's co-defendants include his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid aka "Chemical Ali," who allegedly led the 1988 chemical attack on Halabja.

Iraqi, Coalition Soldiers seize more suspects and caches

Iraqi security forces made several gains against terrorists and insurgents so far this week as a Coalition Police Transition Team provides specialized training to Iraqi Police.

7th Iraqi Army Division and Coalition troops captured five suspected insurgents and a weapons cache near Karabilah April 3. The cache contained AK-47 rifles and ammunition, a bag of detonation cord, blasting caps and rocket-propelled grenade boosters. No injuries or damages were reported.

Other Iraqi Soldiers found another cache the same day near Ramadi. Soldiers from the 1st Iraqi Army Division discovered a cache of mortar rounds, hand-held radios and artillery detonators during a raid in southeast Ramadi.

The previous day, Soldiers from the 1st and 7th Iraqi Army Divisions captured 15 suspected insurgents. Soldiers from the 7th arrested eight people near Ramadi and three others near Karabilah. The troops detained the military-aged males for suspected insurgent activity while conducting patrols in the areas. One of the detainee’s had been named on a suspect list.

Soldiers from the 1st Iraqi Army Division detained four additional suspects in Khalidiyah April 2. Each of the arrests occurred during joint security patrols with Coalition troops.

U.S. Army Military Police continue to train the Iraqi Security Forces to protect and secure their country, recently focusing on room clearing procedures at a police station in Baqubah.

The 978th Military Police Company conducts training at more than 15 police stations in Diyala Province. The MPs, attached to 4th Infantry Division, Task Force Band of Brothers, approach the training with the same crawl-walk-run philosophy used to train their own.

“We go there [to the Iraqi police station], we teach a certain thing and we’ll just work on that for a couple days,” said Sgt. Frank Zavala, an instructor with the 978th MP Company. “Then we’ll just keep building up on that until they get it down.”

The learning curve for a new Iraqi policeman is much like that of a new enlistee learning basic combat training. “We can obviously tell that a lot of these people have not done this before,” said Spc. Robert Stearns, 978th MP Company. “When we do our own AIT in the MP corps, it is very similar.”

The Soldiers conveyed the basic principles as well as the details, knowing small mistakes can be fatal, “Like putting a finger on a trigger or not paying attention where their sectors of fire were,” Stearns said.

The Iraqi police are an important part of the future stability of Iraq, and training efforts like this one will eventually enable them to sustain their own training and become independent.

(Compiled from official Defense Department and wire sources)