‘Good Riddance,’ Bush Says of Hussein

WASHINGTON —  President Bush on Monday bid “good riddance” to Saddam Hussein and vowed to fully involve Iraqis in a public trial that airs “all the atrocities” the former ruler is accused of committing during his 24 years in office.

Exuding contempt, Bush at one point directly addressed the deposed president, who was captured Saturday in a burrow near his onetime base of Tikrit.

“Good riddance. The world is better off without you, Mr. Saddam Hussein,” Bush said. “I find it very interesting that when the heat got on, you dug yourself a hole and you crawled in it. And our brave troops, combined with good intelligence, found you. And you’ll be brought to justice, something you did not afford the people you brutalized in your own country.”

At other points in his 48-minute news conference, Bush called Hussein “a deceiver,” “a liar,” “a torturer,” “a murderer” and “a tyrant.” He also expressed doubt that Hussein could be trusted on any information he might provide about weapons of mass destruction or connections he might have had to terrorist groups.

“I would be very skeptical of anything he said -- one way or the other,” Bush said. “I don’t believe he’ll tell the truth.”

The president shed little light on the nature of the legal proceedings Hussein would face, calling the determination of the legalities better left to lawyers. “I will instruct this government to make sure the system includes the Iraqi citizens and make sure the process withstands international scrutiny,” Bush said.

“And there needs to be a public trial, and all the atrocities need to come out, and justice needs to be delivered,” he said.

A senior State Department official said later that the administration was confident that Hussein could receive a fair trial before Iraq’s newly created criminal tribunal, though the Iraqis still need to settle a number of “technical and legal” issues before the court begins to hear cases.

The U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council on Wednesday issued regulations creating the five-member tribunal to judge cases involving war crimes and genocide that occurred during the Baath Party’s 35-year reign. The Sunni Muslim-dominated regime is accused of slaughtering more than 100,000 ethnic Kurds and using chemical weapons. It also put down a Shiite Muslim rebellion in 1991.

Human rights advocates have questioned whether Iraqis, without a constitution or recent judicial experience, can carry out such a trial fairly.

The State Department official said international participants would be allowed to help the tribunal as advisors and judges. The Iraqis “are looking for international involvement in some form,” he said.

He said the United States would leave to the Iraqis whether to allow capital punishment, which has not been an option in recent United Nations war crimes trials. “This is clearly for the Iraqis to decide,” the official said.

As governor of Texas, Bush allowed 152 executions to proceed. At his news conference Monday, he declined to say what type of punishment he thought Hussein deserved.

“I’ve got my own personal views of how he ought to be treated, but that’s -- I’m not an Iraqi citizen. It’s going to be up to the Iraqis to make those decisions,” he said. “What matters is the views of the Iraqi citizens. And we need to work, of course, with them to develop a system that is fair and where he will be put on trial and will be brought to justice -- the justice he didn’t, by the way, afford any of his own citizens.”

In what he called his final news conference of the year -- his first since Oct. 28 -- Bush also parried questions about the unfolding 2004 presidential campaign, saying he would continue to refrain from engaging in politics because of his “solemn duty” as commander in chief to “keep America secure.”

“There’s going to be plenty of time for politics,” he said.

The news conference, held on short notice in an auditorium in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House, was dominated by talk of Hussein’s capture and Iraq. Bush vowed to “stay the course until the job is done” but refused to discuss a rate of U.S. troop withdrawal in light of the capture. Such deployment decisions, he said, would depend on the recommendations of U.S. military commanders, based on the security situation in Iraq.

While calling Hussein’s capture “a great moment” for the Iraqi people, Bush also warned anew that the violence in Iraq would not necessarily abate.

“The terrorists in Iraq remain dangerous,” he said. “There will probably be some that will continue to test our will. They’ll try to kill in hopes that we will flee. And the citizens of Iraq need to know we will stay the course.”

In the long run, Bush added, “a free Iraq will serve the peace and security of America and the world.”

The president also defended the invasion to oust Hussein, insisting that the Iraqi leader had been a threat and did possess weapons of mass destruction -- Bush’s initial rationale for launching the war.

Also Monday, Bush called newly installed Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, who congratulated Bush on the capture of Hussein.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Martin “raised the Canadian government’s concern” over Bush’s policy of barring companies from France, Germany, Russia, Canada and other countries that opposed the U.S.-led war from bidding on billions of dollars worth of contracts to rebuild Iraq.

Bush made no commitments but told Martin that Washington and Ottawa should “keep open the lines of communication,” McClellan said. The president also invited Martin to visit Washington.

In his news conference, Bush sent a somewhat mixed message even as he fervently defended the policy on contracts, saying the administration was “reaching out” to such countries because “we want them to participate.”

He added, however: “But the idea of spending taxpayers’ money on contracts to firms that did not participate in the initial thrust is just something I wasn’t going to do. And you know what? The American taxpayers understand that. They understand that clearly. That’s not to say there’s not other ways to participate, and we look forward to including them in the process.”

Among the many congratulatory calls Bush received after Hussein’s capture was one Sunday morning from a former president of the United States -- the current president’s father, who was the target of an Iraqi assassination plot in 1993.

“He just said: ‘Congratulations. It’s a great day for the country.’ And I said, ‘It’s a greater day for the Iraqi people,’ ” Bush said.

“And that’s what I believe.... It was a day where America is more secure as a result of his capture,” he said.

“But more importantly, Saturday was a great day for the people who have suffered under this tyrant.”

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Times staff writer Paul Richter contributed to this report.