Tue 4 Apr 2006 2:28 PM ET
By Shamal Aqrawi

ARBIL, Iraq, April 4 (Reuters) - Many Kurds who learned on Tuesday that Saddam Hussein could soon face trial for genocide against their community shrugged their shoulders, saying they had more pressing matters to deal with.

"I am happy that Saddam will go on trial because of everything he did," said 39-year-old Sahar Ibrahim in Baghdad.

"But it really won't matter. There is no security in the country now.

"It is much worse than before. At least then we knew what the danger was."

The court trying Saddam for crimes against humanity said he would stand trial on new charges of genocide against Kurds in the late 1980s. The trial could start as early as next week.

Saddam faces charges of ordering the Anfal campaign in the late 1980s. Kurds say more than 100,000 people were killed and thousands of villages destroyed in ground and air offensives.

Kurds say Saddam was a brutal dictator, but post-war Iraq presents its own challenges.

Hundreds of Kurdish protesters destroyed a memorial to a 1988 gas attack in the Iraqi town of Halabja last month, setting fire to museum in a protest over a lack of local services.

Those same frustrations are felt by other Kurds who welcomed news that Saddam would face the charges but seemed preoccupied by their country's many troubles.

STABILITY AND FEAR

Although Kurds enjoy relative stability in their semi-autonomous region in the north, they fear getting drawn into sectarian violence which has raised fears of civil war.

Iraqi leaders, including President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, have yet to form a unity government four months after elections as a Sunni Arab insurgency and sectarian strife grip Iraq.

"There was once one Saddam Hussein, now we have many, many," said Shawan Abdul Wahab, a 33-year-old engineer.

"Saddam Hussein should not be executed because he was better than our current politicians."

Saddam faces the death penalty on the charges of genocide, as well as in his current trial over the killings of 148 Shi'ite Muslim men and boys after a failed assassination attempt on him in 1982 in Dujail.

Some want Saddam condemned to pave the way for a new Iraq where everyone has a say, something denied during his three decades of absolute power.

"Saddam Hussein should be put in a glass cage and stay there so he can see the new Iraq, the new democracy, until he dies of despair," said 44-year-old teacher Ali Abdullah in the northern town of Kirkuk.

Saddam's co-accused include his cousin, Ali Hassan al- Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali", best known for his role in a poison gas attack against the Kurdish village of Halabja.

At least 5,000 people died in the Halabja attack, which is not part of the Anfal campaign.

"This (genocide) trial will be the most important one," said Adalat Saleh, a civil servant in the Kurdish town of Arbil. "It will not just be the trying of Saddam Hussein, it will be the trying of an era."