World

Iraqi Impatience Spawns Clashes

January 12, 2004 / 9:47 AM EST / CBS/AP

Hundreds of Iraqis hurled stones at baton-wielding British soldiers Sunday in the southeastern city of Amarah, witnesses said, a day after clashes killed six protesters and wounded at least 11.

Screaming protesters, some armed with sticks and shovels, attacked in waves throughout the day, trying to rush troops guarding the city hall. The British drove the crowd back from the compound, which also houses the U.S.-led occupation force and the 1st Battalion of Britain's Light Infantry.

In other developments:

Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted Sunday that he was right to take military action in Iraq based on intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, despite no such weapons yet coming to light. Blair said that weapons inspectors had found extensive evidence of clandestine operations and concealment operations. "The one thing I do hope that people understand is that I received this intelligence and I believe it would have been irresponsible not to have acted upon it," Blair told the British Broadcasting Corp. "You can only imagine what would have happened if I'd ignored the intelligence and then something terrible had happened."

Paul O'Neill, who was fired as treasury secretary one year ago, tells 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl that President Bush sought the ouster of Saddam Hussein from the start of his presidency - eight months before the Sept. 11 attacks. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap." As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in his new book that he was surprised that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.

On Saturday, the Danish military said its engineering troops and Icelandic de-miners found artillery shells near Quarnah, north of Basra, which may contain chemical blister agents. The shells were wrapped in plastic but some had leaked and they appeared to have been buried for at least 10 years, the statement said. The shells were sent for further testing to determine if they contained chemical weapons, banned in Iraq under U.N. resolutions. Before the war, the United States alleged Iraq still had stockpiles of mustard gas, a World War I-era blister agent stored in liquid form. U.S. intelligence officials also claimed Iraq had sarin, cyclosarin and VX, which are extremely deadly nerve agents.

U.S. officials in Baghdad are trying to assure Iraqis that they didn't make any deal with Saddam Hussein which would keep an Iraqi court from trying him, reports CBS News Correspondent Lisa Barron. They're saying Iraqis will have a "substantial leadership role" when Saddam finally faces trial. But at least one member of the U.S.-picked governing council, which is pushing for a public trial in Iraq - thinks Washington might have given Saddam prisoner-of-war status to keep him from revealing embarrassing information about the United States.

Officials said the protestors in Amarah were demanding jobs in a city of 400,000 where the biggest employer was the security force of Saddam Hussein until the U.S.-led invasion ousted his dictatorial regime.

Booms and flashes of light exploded in the crowd, believed to be from homemade bombs of tin cans packed with explosives and nails and lit with candlewicks.

Soldiers blocked roads and periodically pushed demonstrators back, sometimes with batons, sometimes marching in unison behind riot shields and, against younger protesters, simply shoving them with their hands.

"Yesterday there were more adults with much more violent intent," said British Maj. Johnny Bowron. We are trying to permit a peaceful protest but prevent loss of life or damage to property."

In the northern city of Mosul, U.S. soldiers arrested four men on Sunday accused of working for the top fugitive in Iraq as rebel paymasters. The four were paying insurgents to attack U.S. troops on behalf of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam Hussein's former chief lieutenants and an apparent financier of the anti-U.S. guerrilla war, according to a military spokesman.

Elsewhere, U.S. troops arrested a Saddam loyalist Sunday suspected in last month's shooting of an American soldier who was saved by his flak jacket.

Acting on a neighbor's tip, soldiers arrested the man in an early morning raid on his home in Tikrit, according to Lt. Col. Steve Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army's Texas-based 4th Infantry Division.

The soldier allegedly shot by the Iraqi, Sgt. Jeffrey Allen of Leitchfield, Ky., made the arrest, Russell said. Russell described the Iraqi man, whose identity was not revealed, as a member of Saddam's former Fedayeen paramilitary fighters.

Allen was shot twice in the back on Dec. 30 during a patrol in Tikrit but was saved by a protective plate in his flak jacket, Russell said.

In the northern city of Mosul, four mortar shells exploded at the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan office Sunday morning, damaging the building but causing no injuries, according to party officials who were there at the time.

Two other explosions blasted near the U.S.-led coalition office in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, but police said they appeared to be percussion bombs "aimed at terrorizing."

Also Sunday, authorities said the body of an Iraqi working with the U.S.-led coalition was found in the southern city of Basra, along with another man not associated with the coalition. Insurgents opposed to the U.S.-led occupation have targeted soldiers as well as civilians and Iraqi police working with the occupiers.

In Baghdad, two Estonian soldiers suffered minor injuries when a grenade was thrown at their patrol on Saturday, according to Estonian army spokesman Peeter Tali.

Tensions in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, erupted Saturday after hundreds of Iraqis gathered to protest that authorities had not kept a promise to give them jobs.

They stoned the town hall, shattering windows. Shots rang out, makeshift bombs were thrown and the British and Iraqi police opened fire. Hospital officials said six people were killed. The British put the death toll at five — with no casualties among soldiers or police.

On Sunday, demonstrators sent a representative to talk to British and Iraqi officials, who promised them 8,000 jobs, according to witnesses. But protesters said a similar promise made weeks before had not been fulfilled and the clash ensued. No Iraqi police were visible at the scene Sunday.