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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