Bush: Saddam Must Stand Trial
President Bush said Monday that he supported a public trial of Saddam Hussein, but said his "personal views" on whether the death penalty would be an appropriate sentence for the captured former Iraqi leader did not matter.
"There needs to be a public trial," the president told a press conference. "And all the atrocities must come out, and justice must be delivered."
Mr. Bush called Saddam's arrest a "great moment for the people of Iraq" and said his arrest meant the "nightmare" of his Baathist regime is over.
"Iraqi citizens have lost a source of fear and they can now focus with confidence on the task of creating a hopeful and self-governing nation," the president told reporters. "The enemies of a free Iraq have lost their leader."
"Iraq is on the path to freedom," he said.
The president chided the Iraqi leader for the state he was in when arrested by American troops hiding in a cramped pit near his hometown of Tikrit. "When the heat got on," Mr. Bush said, "you dug yourself a hole."
Saddam's arrest was already reaping dividends for the U.S. military, providing intelligence that allowed U.S. soldiers to capture several top regime figures and uncover rebel cells in the capital, a U.S. general said Monday.
But U.S. and Iraqi officials warned the capture of Saddam was unlikely to destroy the anti-U.S. guerrilla insurgency. Purported insurgent fighters interviewed recently had expressed little loyalty to Saddam.
A suicide bomber driving a four-wheel drive taxi killed eight Iraqi policemen in an attack Monday on a station in the capital's northern outskirts. At least fifteen people were injured. An earlier car bombing injured seven officers.
In related developments:
The president would not say whether he thought the capture of the ousted dictator would elicit more help from foreign nations, or change the timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.
"We will stay the course until the job is done," adding that "the emergence of a free Iraq will transform the region in a positive way."
Since Saddam's capture on Saturday, U.S. Army teams from the 1st Armored Division have captured one high-ranking former regime figure — who has yet to be named — and that prisoner has given up a few others, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling of the 1st Armored Divisions said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday it was too early to know whether Saddam would take a hardened approach with interrogators or would cooperate, but he described Iraq's former leader as one who projected a tough-guy image but was captured cowering in a hole in the ground.
"At this point I wouldn't characterize it … either way, cooperative or uncooperative," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said Monday.
"In my interfaces with him he has been talkative. He'll respond readily to questions that are asked of him in terms of just normal administrative requirements," Sanchez told the CBS News Early Show. "That's how I would term his cooperation with us at this point."
The intelligence that led the military to the men came from the first transcript of Saddam's initial interrogation, and a briefcase of documents Saddam carried with him at the time of his arrest, Hertling said.
The intelligence has also given the U.S. military a far clearer picture of the guerrillas' command and control network in the city, and has confirmed the existence of rebel cells whose existence was previously only suspected, Hertling said.
Saddam's exact whereabouts Monday were unclear. U.S. officials said he had been moved to a secure location and remains in Iraq, Hertling said. CNN and the Dubai-based Arab TV station Al-Arabiya reported Saddam was taken to Qatar. A spokesman at U.S. Central Command would not give information on Saddam's location.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday that it hopes U.S. authorities will let it visit Saddam to check on the conditions in which he is being held.
Speaking on CBS News' 60 Minutes, Rumsfeld said Saddam would be accorded the rights of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, but added that any participation by Saddam in the insurgency against coalition troops might lead to different classification.
The former dictator — one of the world's most-wanted fugitives — was captured by Special Forces during a massive raid on a farmhouse near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, according to Capt. Desmond Bailey. Troops from the 4th Infantry Division guarded the area while Srekhal Forces found Saddam and pulled him out of the narrow hole.
Saddam was hiding in a Styrofoam-covered underground hide-out. The former president was disheveled and wearing a thick beard, and though armed, did not resist or fire a shot.
One U.S. official told reporters that the administration is really surprised Saddam allowed himself to be taken alive.
"My name is Saddam Hussein," the fallen Iraqi leader told U.S. troops in English as they pulled him out of the dank hole. "I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate."
U.S. Special Forces replied: "Regards from President Bush," in an exchange recounted by Maj. Bryan Reed, operations officer for the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division.