THE man in the dock will be Saddam Hussein but Ali Rahee Karim, a former Iraqi tank commander, knows that he should really be standing alongside his former president.

Karim’s tank rolled into the Kurdish town of Halabja on the monstrous day 17 years ago when Saddam’s army used poison gas against a civilian population.

The Iraqi officer followed his orders without questioning them. His tank fired round after round of 125mm shells carrying warheads filled with mustard gas and nerve agents. The assault killed more than 5,000 Kurds, many of them elderly women and children.

Karim is happy that after months of chaotic preparation Saddam’s trial is finally due to begin this week. But he knows that no verdict from a special court in Baghdad will ease his own shame over the attack.

“I cannot forget,” said Karim, weeping often as he recalled his role in the Halabja slaughter. “I believe I should be punished and so should all of the officers who were there.”

Karim’s ambivalence about the trial is shared by many Iraqis. Will it serve, as Washington hopes, as a boost for the rule of law and a blow to the insurgency? Or will it deepen old wounds, increase sectarian tension and fuel more bloodshed? In short, will it help to heal Iraq or push it over the brink?

America has poured at least $75m into a legal effort to secure a watertight conviction of Saddam on charges of crimes against humanity. Although the trial is officially Iraqi organised and led — and the court comprises five Iraqi judges — nobody in Baghdad doubts that the process might have collapsed months ago without Washington’s legal guidance.

As part of their preparation for a confrontation that may last eight months, Iraqi judges and lawyers received training in international criminal law from US, British and other experts. Mock trials were held in London and US lawyers held strategy sessions for prosecutors.

The proceedings are likely to begin with a request for adjournment from Khalil al-Dulaimi, Saddam’s chief Iraqi lawyer. The defence has already petitioned for postponement to allow Saddam access to a wider range of international lawyers — including Anthony Scrivener, one of Britain’s best known QCs who has been asked to represent him — and to provide more time to prepare.

One member of Saddam’s defence team said last week that the tribunal’s refusal to grant a postponement was a breach of Iraq’s laws, given that the defence was not notified of the trial’s start date until September 25.

“The tribunal was not ready when the government declared that the trial will start on October 19,” said Abdul Haq al-Ani, a British-based lawyer, who claimed at least 45 days’ notice should have been given. “Instead of showing independence and transparency, the tribunal adhered to a political decision. Is this a show or a trial?”

The first charge — one of nine that Saddam is expected eventually to face — involves the massacre of 143 people in the Shi’ite village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, in July 1982.

The massacre was allegedly carried out as a reprisal for a failed assassination attempt against Saddam.

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