Red cross gets go ahead for Saddam visit

US authorities have given the International Red Cross permission to see Saddam Hussein, it said today.

“We have had a green light for a visit,” said Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“However, we don’t yet know when it will take place,” Kellenberger said in an interview with the daily Tribune de Geneve.

ICRC spokesman Florian Westphal confirmed Kellenberger’s comments.

No immediate comment was available from US officials.

The ICRC requested permission to visit Saddam soon after he was captured on December 13 and the United States declared him a prisoner of war. The neutral, Swiss-run organisation is entitled to see POWs under the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war, although the accords do not set a timetable for visits.

The ICRC moved many of its international staff out of Iraq following the October 27 bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters. But it has representatives who continue to visit Iraqi detainees, whether they are ordinary soldiers or among the 55 most-wanted whose faces appear in a deck of cards issued by US authorities.

The coalition says it has captured 44 of the 55 and ICRC officials told The Associated Press the organisation has visited most if not all of the high-ranking detainees.

The ICRC traditionally works behind the scenes and refuses to comment on specific cases. Kellenberger said the same rules would apply after it sees Saddam.

“Why make an exception for him? He’s a prisoner of war,” he said.

“We don’t talk publicly about conditions of detention. But we discuss them in a very clear manner with the authorities concerned.”