Baghdad still under curfew after verdict

BAGHDAD – Three US soldiers were killed and Baghdad was under curfew for a second day yesterday as the Iraqi government braced for any insurgent backlash against the court ruling that Saddam Hussein should hang.

Facing reverses in today’s US congressional elections because of disillusion with his venture in Iraq, President George W Bush hailed Sunday’s verdict from the US-sponsored Iraqi High Tribunal as a vindication. “My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision and the world is better off for it,” he said while campaigning.He called the judgement “a milestone in the Iraqi people’s effort to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law”.But his Republican party’s Democratic opponents accused Bush of leaving US troops stuck in the middle of mounting sectarian violence between Saddam’s Sunni Arab minority and the Shi’ite Muslims who dominate Iraq’s fledgling democratic institutions.”The Iraqis have traded a dictator for chaos.Neither option is acceptable, especially when it is our troops who are caught in the middle,” said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.US officials denied suggestions that the verdict, whose full written version will not be available for several days, was delivered in haste deliberately to help the Republican campaign.Bush spokesman Tony Snow called it “absolutely preposterous” and said anyone who believed that must be “smoking rope”.Heavy curfews in Baghdad and other areas of mixed population appeared to succeed in keeping down violence on Sunday after the judge told the 69-year-old former president he should be “hanged until dead” for crimes against humanity — killing, torturing and jailing hundreds of Shi’ites from the town of Dujail.An automatic appeal means no execution is likely until next year at the earliest.Ethnic Kurds, for whose genocide complaint Saddam is due back in court on Tuesday, are still keen to have their own day of judgement for the fallen strongman.Early on Monday, Reuters reporters heard several mortar rounds slam into areas around Baghdad’s Green Zone, the heavily fortified government compound that was once Saddam’s palace complex and now houses the courthouse where he has been tried.A government source said the curfew, an increasingly common security measure, was extended indefinitely: “Better more curfew than more bombings,” the source told Reuters.Nampa-Reuters”My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision and the world is better off for it,” he said while campaigning.He called the judgement “a milestone in the Iraqi people’s effort to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law”.But his Republican party’s Democratic opponents accused Bush of leaving US troops stuck in the middle of mounting sectarian violence between Saddam’s Sunni Arab minority and the Shi’ite Muslims who dominate Iraq’s fledgling democratic institutions.”The Iraqis have traded a dictator for chaos.Neither option is acceptable, especially when it is our troops who are caught in the middle,” said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.US officials denied suggestions that the verdict, whose full written version will not be available for several days, was delivered in haste deliberately to help the Republican campaign.Bush spokesman Tony Snow called it “absolutely preposterous” and said anyone who believed that must be “smoking rope”.Heavy curfews in Baghdad and other areas of mixed population appeared to succeed in keeping down violence on Sunday after the judge told the 69-year-old former president he should be “hanged until dead” for crimes against humanity — killing, torturing and jailing hundreds of Shi’ites from the town of Dujail.An automatic appeal means no execution is likely until next year at the earliest.Ethnic Kurds, for whose genocide complaint Saddam is due back in court on Tuesday, are still keen to have their own day of judgement for the fallen strongman.Early on Monday, Reuters reporters heard several mortar rounds slam into areas around Baghdad’s Green Zone, the heavily fortified government compound that was once Saddam’s palace complex and now houses the courthouse where he has been tried.A government source said the curfew, an increasingly common security measure, was extended indefinitely: “Better more curfew than more bombings,” the source told Reuters.Nampa-Reuters