Attorney: Saddam is calm

"I saw him this afternoon and his morale is very high," Dulaimi told Reuters. "I told him about the accusations and he said he was sure he is innocent."

"He said he didn't care about them," he added.

Dulaimi said he would immediately seek an adjournment of the trial, arguing he had insufficient time to prepare. A defense team statement said he would also challenge the jurisdiction of the Special Tribunal, whose five judges were chosen two years ago by U.S. officials.

"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein cannot get a fair trial before this special court. It is created illegally and denies him basic human rights," the statement said.

The charges of crimes against humanity against Saddam and seven of his associates stem from the deaths of more than 140 men from the mostly Shiite village of Dujail after a failed assassination attempt against him there in 1982.

The trial will open four days after Iraqis voted in a referendum on a new constitution, meant to draw a line under the Saddam era. Though final results are yet to be announced, Iraqis are believed to have backed the new constitution.

But officials have had to play down suggestions of fraud and politicians from Saddam's once dominant Sunni Arab minority have complained of rigged ballots and warned of unrest.

In a statement posted on a pro-insurgency Web site, Saddam's outlawed Baath party called on insurgents to launch attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces at the start of the trial.

"Strike at the army and security forces of the agent regime and its leaders and its traitorous figures," said the statement issued on Monday.

The case is the first which could be brought against him, including the 1988 gassing of Kurdish villagers and the brutal suppression of a Shiite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War.

Iran said on Tuesday it had sent charges against Saddam to the court, including that of using chemical weapons against Iranian civilians in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

If convicted, Saddam could be hanged.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked whether President George W. Bush favored the death penalty for Saddam if he is found guilty, said: "It's up to the Iraqi people to decide through their special tribunal.

"The Iraqi people will make the decision about how they hold Saddam Hussein to account for his crimes against humanity and his brutalities against the Iraqi people," McClellan said.

Even by Iraqi standards, the trial will be held under unprecedented security, with body searches, X-rays, background checks, eye-scans and finger-printing.

The defendants will sit facing the judges, who will be on a raised dais. The witness stand will have a curtain that can be drawn to protect identities and bullet-proof glass will keep journalists and observers from the body of the court.

Despite the preparations, sources close to the tribunal say proceedings are likely to be adjourned so judges can study defense motions.

International human rights groups have questioned the court, saying it could produce "victors' justice."

But Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari dismissed those concerns.

The would-be assassins at Dujail were from Jaafari's Shiite Islamist Daawa party, then a clandestine opposition movement.