BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants resumes in a fortified Baghdad courtroom on Monday with former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark joining the team defending Iraq's overthrown president.

Clark, a controversial figure who was the top U.S. attorney in the late 1960s before becoming an anti-Vietnam war activist and a defender of figures including Slobodan Milosevic, said he hoped to strengthen Saddam's defense.

"Our plan is to go to court in Baghdad on Monday morning representing the defense counsel as defense support," Clark told Reuters in Amman on Sunday before flying to the Iraqi capital.

"A fair trial in this case is absolutely imperative for historical truth," the 77-year-old said.

"It is absolutely essential that the court is legal in its constitution. A court cannot be a court unless it is absolutely independent of all external pressures and forces."

Clark will be joined by the former justice minister of Qatar, Najeeb al-Nauimi, lending an international aspect to proceedings which have until now been entirely Iraqi-run.

It was not clear if the chief judge of the trial, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, would allow Clark and Nauimi into his courtroom, but a spokeswoman for the defense team said their attendance had already been approved by U.S. advisers to the court.

Clark was Jane Fonda's big buddy during her consorting with the enemy days in North Vietnam while our brave men and women were dying at their hands and was a huge Vietnam War protester in his own right. Some of his clients have included former Liberian president, alleged war criminal and current international fugitive from justice Charles Taylor, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and accused war criminal and former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, whose trial continues in The Hague. Given his affinity for defending war criminals, I guess it's only fitting that this slime bag would be slithering over to Saddam Hussein's defense table. Fortunately for us, Clark has spent so much time being a peacenik lefty freak that he hasn't had a whole lot of time to devote to actual lawyering.

As Fox News Military Analyst Colonel David Hunt said this morning "The problem for Hussein is that Clark isn't a very good lawyer."

Hopefully, this will be a benefit to the Iraqi people and those of us who would like nothing more than to see Saddam fry.