Baghdad, Iraq ? In the year since he was captured and hustled away to a secret location, Saddam Hussein has taken up gardening, undergone a hernia operation and written poetry that one visitor describes as “rubbishy.”

What he has not done is meet with any of the 20 lawyers claiming to represent him. And with the country in the grips of an insurgency, predicting when Iraq’s most famous prisoner will be tried is no easier now than it was on Dec. 13, 2003, the day he was pulled from his hiding spot in a spider hole near his hometown of Tikrit.

When Saddam first appeared before an Iraqi court in July, some officials predicted a swift trial. Ever since, they have said October, November or December. Now, they expect it no earlier than the beginning of 2006, Iraq’s National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told The Associated Press.

“This is going to be probably the trial of the century and we have to get it right,” al-Rubaie said. “We can’t suddenly try him and sentence him to either life in prison or whatever, execute him 100 times as some people want to do.”

Officials say the work of gathering evidence — documents, mass grave sites, testimony from victims — continues away from the public eye and beyond the reach of the insurgents. They insist it is being done meticulously and legitimately.

American officials with the Department of Justice’s Regime Crimes Liaison Office are advising the Iraqi Special Tribunal on the process of bringing Saddam to trial. The Americans paid the tribunal’s budget of $75 million for 2004-2005.

But with elections approaching Jan. 30, the Iraqi government is in flux and likely to stay that way for another year until a new constitution is drafted and another round of elections is held in December 2005.

Sticky situation

Trainers also face a dearth of qualified Iraqi prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges. If proper attorneys are found, they assume a new kind of risk — threats from the guerrillas, believed to be mostly Sunni Muslims like Saddam, or others trying to stymie the trial.

Few Iraqi lawyers are willing to represent Saddam, while prosecutors fear challenging him. The same goes for the judges overseeing the case, slowing its work.

“At various points in time they have had a number of judges who have since withdrawn,” said Hania Mufti, a spokeswoman for New York-based Human Rights Watch who has followed the case. “So that’s been a practical problem on the ground.”

That fact has been sobering for the Americans, who predicted Saddam’s capture would cripple the insurgency. They portrayed violence immediately after his capture as the last gasp of desperate loyalists.

“Saddam’s era is over,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Richard Myers, said days after Saddam was captured. “But it takes time for people to accept the changes.”

Since then, the guerrillas have continued exacting a bloody toll against U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies.

The United States is increasing troop levels to 150,000, higher than they were when the war began, in hopes of providing safety for next month’s elections.

American attention also has shifted to another figure — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — believed to be leading the brutal campaign of hostage-takings, beheadings and bombings that victimize both Americans and Iraqis.

Al-Rubaie said officials suspect, however, that Saddam may have played a role in the continued insurgency. No links have been found between Saddam and al-Zarqawi, who has a $25 million bounty on his head.

“We have evidence that he has prepared for the military defeat and he has prepared his party for military resistance after the liberation,” al-Rubaie said. “And there is mounting evidence that he has put in motion and put in place a mechanism and capabilities, money, planning, training to start immediately after the liberation.”

Legal standstill

Saddam first appeared before the court July 1, without a lawyer. He was presented with seven preliminary charges that included gassing thousands of Kurds in 1988, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the suppression of 1991 revolts by Kurds and Shiites, the murders of religious and political leaders and the mass displacement of Kurds in the 1980s.

Eleven other defendants were arraigned with him.

From Saddam’s standpoint, little headway has been made since. He is said to have a 20-member legal team with lawyers from Belgium, Britain, France, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya and Tunisia, but he has not met them. A lawyer was supposed to meet him for the first time last Wednesday but the U.S. military canceled the meeting.

“Denying him this right is a serious breach of international protocols,” Saddam’s lawyers, who were appointed by Saddam’s wife, Sajida, said Sunday in a statement.

The Jordan-based legal team called for Saddam’s immediate release, calling his detention “illegal right from the very beginning.”

“We are extremely disappointed,” said Ziad al-Khasawneh. “Nobody knows anything, except God and the American administration.”

On Sunday, a lawyer said some detainees had started a hunger strike to protest their detention. A U.S. military official confirmed that some were rejecting their main meals but continuing to snack on MREs.

“They don’t acknowledge the legality of their trials or their detention,” said the lawyer, Izzat Aref, an Iraqi appointed by the family of former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

Some Iraqis claim the legal process has been politicized. Speculation once swirled that Saddam would be hastily tried and executed during the U.S. presidential election campaign. Salem Chalabi, the tribunal director, was ousted abruptly in September and accused Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of pushing for show trials to boost his popularity ahead of Iraqi elections.

“Saddam could reveal very important information and his trial could become a lesson not only for the Iraqi people but for history and humanity,” said Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress party, led by Salem Chalabi’s uncle, Ahmad Chalabi. “Unfortunately, this opportunity is going away, and this court is losing its credibility.”

The court lost a partner when the United Nations refused to help train judges because the world body does not cooperate with courts that can impose the death penalty.

Prison routine

In the meantime, Saddam seems to have settled into a humdrum existence behind bars.

He receives regular visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which passes letters from him to his family. He gets out of his cell — which is 12 feet by 15 feet — twice a day for recreation, which includes exercising and tending plants, said al-Rubaie, who visited him three months ago.

Saddam also had a hernia operation and his blood pressure varies, a U.S. official said. Saddam’s enlarged prostate is not an immediate concern.

He is said to be writing a novel, “Get Out, You Damned,” excerpts of which have appeared in a London-based Arab newspaper, and has written poetry.

“I can tell you one thing, they’re really the most rubbishy poems on Earth,” al-Rubaie told AP. “Even I could write poems in English better than he could in Arabic.”