Bomb blasts disrupt festivities in Iraq

Bomb blasts disrupt festivities in Iraq

Agencies
Baghdad

Joy and festivities disrupted when two car bombs hit Iraq on
Monday with attacks at two police stations killing at least eight
people and swiftly dashing hopes that Saddam Hussein's capture
would bring early peace and security to the country.

A suicide car bomber killed eight people and wounded 13 when
it exploded at the Al-Zuhour police station in the town of Al-
Hussainiya just north of Baghdad, the station commander, Lt. Col.
Amer Nahe, told AFP.

He said the dead included seven sergeants and one officer, but
that it was too soon to determine the number of wounded.

At about the same time, another car bomb exploded and wounded
four policemen at a special operations center on the western edge
of the capital, police said.

"At approximately 8:30 two cars tried to force their way into
the police station," police Captain Sinin Jamel said in Al-
Amiriya suburb.

Meanwhile Saddam, the man who once wielded absolute power over
his country, was held in U.S. military custody, as his opponents
pondered when to put him on trial for crimes against humanity and
world leaders hailed his capture.

U.S. President George W. Bush told Canadian Prime Minister
Paul Martin on Monday that he wanted the Iraqi people to be
involved in trying Saddam and that the tribunal must also be
credible, Martin said.

"Very clearly the President (Bush) wants to have the Iraqi
people involved, but also was very strong on the fact that the
tribunal had to be credible and that justice had to be seen to be
done," Martin told reporters after a 16-minute phone call with
Bush.

In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told CBS
television late on Sunday that Saddam would be treated in
accordance with the Geneva Conventions on the rules of war. But
he declined to say whether he would have formal prisoner-of-war
status.

The current president of Iraq's Governing Council said on
Monday he believed Saddam could face the death penalty when he
goes on trial.

The death penalty has been abolished in Iraq but a government
to be formed by the end of June will be free to re-establish it
for any trial.

The European Union said Monday that Saddam should be given a
fair trial. "He should now be judged in a fair trial, according
to the rule of law, so that justice be done," the EU's Italian
presidency said in a statement.

Asked in a television interview if he would support the death
penalty, he said: "If it were imposed, absolutely."

But Britain, Washington's main ally in Iraq, would not support
the execution of Saddam, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said
Monday, while acknowledging that any punishment should be decided
by the Iraqi people.

For many Arabs Saddam's meek surrender to U.S. forces marked
the total humiliation of a man who portrayed himself as a
champion of Arab rights and the reincarnation of the 12th century
Muslim warrior Saladin.

Repeated broadcasts of close-up footage of Saddam submitting
to medical exams at the hands of U.S. soldiers were seen with
disbelief, shame and disgust.

Of course many were reveling in his spectacular humiliation.

But even those who predicted his downfall did not imagine it
would be that way -- plucked by U.S. soldiers like a rat from a
hole.

U.S. soldiers in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit said they were
ready for more violence following an attack on Monday on an Iraqi
civil defense member, who was wounded in a drive-by shooting in
nearby Ad Dawr, where Saddam was captured hiding in a hole.

Later on Monday, some 100 Saddam-supporters attacked two
police stations in northern Baghdad with automatic weapons and
rocket-propelled grenades, an officer told AFP.

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