The former attorney general has long maintained that Saddam was never as brutal as the Western media claimed, calling eyewitness accounts of Iraqi torture sessions "absurd."

"Propaganda can be pretty vicious," he told radio host Mike Siegel in 2003. "I've worked with problems of defection and informers for years and years and they're not generally reliable."

In March 2004, Clark endorsed John Kerry's presidential candidacy.

"I think John Kerry is a great human being," Saddam's new lawyer told an Accuracy in Media press conference, adding, "I knew [Kerry] when he was - I call a youngster - in his 20s."

Clark's relationship with the top Democrat goes back to April 1971, when he came to the rescue of Kerry's group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War after the Nixon administration threatened to have them arrested for protesting on the Capitol Mall.

In "The New Soldier" - Kerry's 1971 book chronicling the demonstration - photos show Clark and the future presidential candidate appearing onstage together.

"I saw [Kerry] as an extremely caring person," the Butcher of Baghad's attorney recalled last year. "[He] was deeply concerned for peace and the well-being of other people."

In the 1980s Clark and Kerry teamed up once again to block Reagan administration efforts to fight communism in Nicaragua.

Editor's note: