Aftermath: details and new violence
BAGHDAD -- As the fugitive dictator was hauled from the hole in the ground, his first words were an apparent offer to cut a deal with the Americans he had so long defied and despised.
"My name is Saddam Hussein. I am the president of Iraq, and I want to negotiate," the heavily bearded man in dirty clothing blurted to soldiers of a special operations team from the Fourth Infantry Division. Major Bryan Reed, operations officer for the division's First Brigade, yesterday recounted the episode to reporters at the site of Hussein's capture Saturday night near the Sunni Triangle village of Adwar.
According to Reed, a US special forces soldier retorted to Hussein, "Regards from President Bush."
But even as an American military commander said that the information gleaned as the result of Hussein's capture has led to the arrests of a number of former regime figures, a new wave of violence hit the Baghdad area yesterday. Suicide bombers launched deadly attacks against two police stations, and several powerful blasts jolted the capital.
A day after the announcement that the renegade ruler was in US custody, Iraqis pondered the prospect of a political future without Hussein with a mixture of optimism and dread.
Hussein ruled Iraq for 24 years, a brutally oppressive era marked by the mass executions of ethnic Kurds, Shi'ite Muslims, and political dissidents as well as disastrous wars with Iran and, after the invasion of Kuwait, the United States.
Interrogation of Hussein was underway at a secret location yesterday, although an official described the former leader as "more compliant than cooperative." He is not making trouble, a senior United States official said, but he is not forthcoming with information sought by intelligence officers.
The official declined to detail what Americans are asking Hussein, but the interrogation is thought to be focusing on his knowledge of insurgency operations and whether the former regime possessed biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons that are hidden or in terrorist hands.
General Mark Hertling, from the First Armored Division, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that Hussein's arrest -- and more specifically, papers found with the fugitive dictator -- has helped Army intelligence arrest a leading former regime figure, who has provided information leading to the apprehension of others. The military has not yet provided the identities of the newest detainees.
But any hope that Hussein's arrest might bring quick peace to this conflict-racked land was dashed as car bombs exploded yesterday at two police stations on the fringes of Baghdad, killing at least eight officers.
A third bomb was found in a car and defused by an American sapper team.
The deadly attacks were made two days after United States troops caught Hussein "like a rat," in the words of Major General Raymond Odierno. Hussein had been burrowed in a crude hole in the ground outside the village of Adwar, near his ancestral hometown of Tikrit.
In the first attack, a suicide bomber smashed an explosives-laden taxi through the razor wire surrounding the police station in the Husainiyah district north of Baghdad, according to Iraqi police and the US military. Eight officers at the front gate were killed when the driver detonated the car bomb. The powerful blast ripped the facade from the police building and left the structure in shambles, according to accounts from wire services that quoted Iraqi police Lieutenant Colonel Ali Amer.
In the second attack, seven Iraqi police officers were wounded in Baghdad's western Ameriyah neighborhoood when two vehicles charged the police compound. The first vehicle exploded, killing the driver, but the second was abandoned by its driver after coming under intense fire from American troops and Iraqi police, according to the US military.
News of Hussein's arrest broke Sunday, and Iraqis were still stunned yesterday by the videotaped images -- released by the US military -- of the long-feared former leader looking bewildered with wild hair, matted gray beard, and confusion in his eyes.
In interviews in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle, some Iraqis expressed joy at Hussein's capture.
"This is like a great gift to Iraq, a turning point," said Khadhum al-Hussaini, a 52-year-old butcher. "Now Iraq has a chance for a normal life. I don't even care about the economy, I am just so happy for a new life without Saddam."
Royad Umran Johad, a 59-year-old antiques dealer, said: "Saddam was our national nightmare. This could be the chance for a great awakening now that it's over."
But not all Iraqis felt that way; many expressed a sense of humiliation and anger at the US detention of their former leader.
In the Sunni Triangle settlement of Tarmiya, a place of orange groves and palm trees beside the Tigris River, villagers vociferously lamented Hussein's capture. Several said they wanted him back as leader to solve their problems of poverty, unemployment, and the lack of basic services, such as clean water and electricity.
"Without Saddam Hussein, Iraq is nothing," said Ismail Ali Ahmed, who noted that his family is constantly ill from drinking water from the sewage-tainted Tigris. Hussein, he said, would finish work on a pumping station to bring potable water to the village.
"He made Iraq mean something," Ahmed said. "Saddam attacked Israel. He made everyone afraid. He made us proud."
One man in Tarmiya, who gave his name as Ismail, pronounced his loyalty to Hussein this way: "I have three children. I would give them to Saddam to use as his shoes."
In Baghdad, several demonstrations erupted in the streets yesterday as Iraqis celebrated Hussein's capture. Hundreds of members of the Iraq Communist Party marched through the center of the city waving bright-red banners and ululating with joy.
But in the Sunni Triangle village of Fallujah, an agricultural center where American troops have come under regular attack, a crowd of young men gathered and thumped their chests, proclaiming: "Saddam, we pledge our lives to you! Saddam, we pledge our blood to you." Near Tikrit, soldiers from the Fourth Infantry Division were basking in the glory of participating in the historic bust that netted Hussein. "It almost seems too easy," Sergeant Ebony Jones of Kansas City, Mo., told the AP. "This is the best thing that ever happened to us here."
Members of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, the interim government, said Hussein will be put on trial soon after the United States transfers power to a sovereign government next spring.
But council member Mouwafak al-Rabii, a Shi'ite Muslim party member, predicted that a trial of Hussein "will begin very soon, in the next few weeks."
That seems unlikely. Last week, the council created a special tribunal for prosecuting members of the former regime, thus putting in place a legal framework for trying Hussein, whose reign included the mass executions of ethnic Kurds and Shi'ite Muslims. But US officials say it is not yet clear whether Hussein's trial will be conducted by the special tribunal.
"It is vital for the Iraqi people to see justice done," said Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the Governing Council. "The people of Iraq have been waiting for this critical moment in our history."
Shatha Alawsy, a Globe news assistant in Baghdad, contributed to this report.
