IRAQ's military is on war-footing and a total curfew has been imposed in key provinces as the country prepares for a verdict in the war crimes trial of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
A total curfew has been decreed in three flashpoint provinces; the war-torn capital Baghdad, the sectarian battlefields of Diyala and Saddam's home region of Salaheddin in preparation for the verdict - expected sometime after 6.30pm (AEDT).
Late yesterday, on the eve of the verdict, the interior ministry claimed to have killed 53 al-Qaeda militants in a gunbattle on the southern outskirts of the capital, in the latest sign of the ferocity of the conflict.
In the eye of the storm, amid the relative calm of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, lawyers were preparing for a historic televised hearing at which Saddam and seven henchmen will hear whether they are to face the gallows.
The Iraqi High Tribunal was expected to start sitting in its windowless bunker at around 10:30am (6.30pm AEDT) , with Saddam and his former allies in the dock and Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman leading a panel sitting in judgment.
The accused are expected to be each given a chance to speak, after which Rahman will hand down a summary of the verdicts and begin reading a 300-page ruling designed to insulate the judgement from appeal, officials have said.
Saddam and two other defendants are charged with crimes against humanity - his half-brother Barzan Hassan al-Tikriti and his former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan - and face the death penalty if convicted.
Any verdict carrying a death sentence or a sentence of life imprisonment will automatically be subject to review by a panel of appeal judges, who will decide whether or not to allow an eventual retrial.
If the judgment stands, however, Saddam must be executed within 30 days of the appeals panel delivering its verdict, the chief prosecutor has said.
Iraq's current government is far from a neutral observer in the case - indeed, many experts have accused it of heavy-handed intervention in sacking Rahman's predecessor and applying pressure on the proceedings.
"We hope the sentence matches what this man deserves for what he has done against the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people will express happiness in the way they find appropriate," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday.
"We call upon the Iraqi people to be calm, to be disciplined and to express themselves in ways that take into consideration the security challenge and the need to protect the lives of citizens," he added.
Saddam and his fellow defendants stand accused of ordering the village of Dujail to suffer a savage collective punishment after agents of Maliki's Dawa party attempted to kill the then Iraqi leader there in 1982.
The community's orchards were ripped up and 148 Shi'ite civilians were dragged before a Baath Party kangaroo court and sentenced to death.
Such an accusation still carries a potent political charge more than three and a half years after Saddam was driven from power by a US-led invasion, amid ongoing sectarian bloodshed and effective occupation by US forces.
Iraq's Shi'ite majority seized upon the fall of the Sunni dictator and the old elite to seize power and seek vengeance for crimes such as the destruction of Dujail, while the country has slipped into sectarian war.
Many of the Sunni insurgents fighting the US-backed regime remain loyal to Saddam's memory. Last month, for example, tribal sheikhs paraded outside Kirkuk brandishing portraits of their deposed leader and demanding his restoration.
Such armed groups - including the Islamic Army of Iraq, which is made up of former Baath Party cadres and veterans of Saddam's armed forces - have been at the forefront of attacks on US and government forces.
Whether they have reserves of fury yet to unleash may become evident in the aftermath of the verdict.
utah 26 Community Member 
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