Iraq "has been returned to its rightful owners and ... joins Afghanistan (news - web sites) as a nation transformed from a state sponsor of terror to an ally in the war on terror," Cheney said in a speech meant to rebuild support for Bush lost amid the growth of violence and instability in post-invasion Iraq.

Cheney repeated his position that Saddam's regime had "long-established ties with al Qaeda," though an independent U.S. investigation has said it found no evidence of collaboration between the two.

Apart from the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the preliminary charges against Saddam referred to the suppression of Kurdish and Shi'ite revolts after the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites), poison gas attacks and other massacres of Kurds, the killing of religious leaders in 1974 and the killing of political figures over three decades.

Hearing the charge that he ordered the gassing of thousands of Kurds in an attack at Halabja in 1988, Saddam shrugged it off, saying he had heard of the incident through the media.

Told by the judge that counsel would be provided later if he could not pay for his own, Saddam offered a sardonic reply: "Everyone says, the Americans say, I have millions of dollars stashed away in Geneva. Why shouldn't I afford a lawyer?"

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