Eight killed in two car bombs at Baghdad-area police stations

Two car bombs exploded at separate police stations in and near Baghdad on Monday, killing at least eight policemen and shattering any hopes of a quick end to violence after the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Lt. Colonel Ali Amer said the eight were killed and 10 officers were injured in a blast in the northern Husainiyah district. Earlier Monday, four officers were wounded when a car bomb exploded in the western Ameriyah neighborhood.

The attacks came less than a day after U.S. officials announced the capture of Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein.

Amer said the explosion in Husainiyah occurred when a Toyota Land Cruiser drove through the razor fence encircling the building, and detonated next to the gate. The blast left a one-meter (3-foot) deep crater about 10 meters (yards) from the entrance to the building whose facade was demolished by the blast.

The attack in Ameriyah occurred just after 8 A.M., when a suicide bomber drove his car into the gate of a police station there, said Capt. Brad Loudon. The vehicle detonated killing the driver and injuring several policemen, Loudon said.

A second car then drove into the compound and was immediately engaged by gunfire from U.S. soldiers and policemen. The driver abandoned the vehicle and ran into the building, where he was arrested, Loudon said. U.S. troops cordoned off the area. An Iraqi officer, Sgt. Hamid Ahmed said four of his colleagues were injured in the blast.A car bomb ripped through the Zuhour police station at Husseiniyah village, 30 kilometers north of Baghdad, killing nine people and injuring more than 20, a police official told Reuters.

A second explosives-laden car, with the driver inside, exploded outside Amiriyah criminal investigation department in Baghdad shortly afterwards. The driver was killed and eight people wounded. Four cars were destroyed in the blast.

A police officer on the scene said the attack was a suicide bombing.

"We were standing outside the police station when a very fast car came, we shouted to try and stop him but he detonated the car," officer Mohamed Hashim told Reuters.

A third attack was foiled in Amiriyah when police fired at a speeding car. The driver abandoned the vehicle and fled. Explosives were found in his car and defused.

The three cars were all Toyotas - two Land Cruisers and a saloon, police said.

Bush administration leaning toward trial in IraqWashington has yet to formally announce where and in what manner Saddam Hussein will be brought to trial, but U.S. officials are leaning toward a tribunal to be held in Iraq with some of the elements of an international trial, in order to assure that the proceedings would be viewed as fair and as a trial of the world as a whole against the former Iraqi president.

The Iraqi ruling council has made it clear that they want the proceedings to be held in a special tribunal the establishment of which the council announced last week.

Saddam will be brought to trial for the mass murder of some 300,000 Iraqi civilians, for a range of war crimes, and for suppression of human rights.

Another possibility is that he will be tried at the international war crimes tribunal at the Hague, but the United States is unenthusiastic regarding this option. It has taken issue with the tribunal's actions in the past, and notes that the panel's jurisdiction only extends to crimes committed since its inception.

At the same time, a number of senior Democrats urged that the trial be held at the Hague, and that the event become part of America's efforts to heal wounds with Europe.

Bush hails capture, but warns of more violence U.S. President George W. Bush, cautiously marking a major milestone in the Iraq war, said Sunday that Saddam Hussein's capture "marks the end of the road for him," but not the end of violence in Iraq.

In three-minute televised remarks at the White House, Bush said Saddam will "face the justice he denied to millions" but gave no details on what will now happen to Saddam.

"In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq," Bush said in his first remarks on Saddam's capture.

Bush's speech from the White House Cabinet Room was far more low-key than his May 1 address aboard an aircraft carrier, where he declared major combat operations over only to watch a bloody guerrilla insurgency unfold in the ensuing months and U.S. authorities fail to find the promised weapons of mass destruction.

"The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq. We still face terrorists who would rather go on killing the innocent than accept the rise of liberty in the heart of the Middle East. Such men are a direct threat to the American people, and they will be defeated," Bush said.

Bush, who made a secret trip to see U.S. troops in Baghdad on the Thanksgiving holiday last month, said the operation to capture Saddam was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts "who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country."

"The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq. It marks the end of the road for him, and for all who bullied and killed in his name," Bush said.

Bush had a message for the Iraqi people, many who have feared the return of Saddam to power.

"You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again. All Iraqis who take the side of freedom have taken the winning side," he said.

"The goals of our coalition are the same as your goals - sovereignty for your country, dignity for your great culture, and for every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life," Bush said.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, one of the main architects of the Iraq invasion, on Sunday called the capture of Hussein "momentous."

"Today is a momentous day for the Iraqi people," Rumsfeld said in a statement on the Pentagon's website. "The Iraqi people have now been liberated in spirit, as well as in fact."

Click here for full statement by Rumsfeld

Time: Saddam isn't directly answering questionsA U.S. intelligence official in Iraq said that Hussein "has not been very cooperative," with interrogators in initial questioning, Time Magazine reported on its website.

The official said that the former Iraqi president didn't answer any of the initial questions directly and was sometimes less than coherent.

The official said that when asked "How are you?", Saddam answered, "I am sad because my people are in bondage." He also refused a glass of water offered to him, saying, "If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage."

Interrogators also asked Saddam whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. "No, of course not," Saddam answered, according to the official, "the U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us."

	Saddam Hussein being examined by an American doctor after his capture Sunday in Iraq. (AP / U.S. Army)