Shiite Marchers Demand Hussein Be Tried in Iraq, Not Treated as a POW

BAGHDAD, Jan. 20 -- For the second day in a row, Shiite Muslim demonstrators took to the streets here Tuesday, this time demanding that U.S. officials allow ousted president Saddam Hussein to be tried and executed in Iraq rather than treated as a prisoner of war.

About 5,000 protesters, mostly followers of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, staged a peaceful rally in central Baghdad. They also called on U.S. officials to resist efforts by Iraqi Kurds to divide the country under an ethnically oriented federal system.

"Saddam is a criminal who killed many thousands of people. All Iraqis want him to hang," said Karim Darani, 43, a marcher from the large, impoverished Shiite community in northeastern Baghdad known as Sadr City. "We want Iraq to be a peaceful, united nation for all ethnic groups -- Shiites and Sunnis, Kurds and Christians and Turks."

Tuesday night, a rocket landed inside the Green Zone, an area of central Baghdad controlled by U.S. forces. A loud explosion was heard about 9:40 p.m., followed by sirens, and one person may have been injured in the attack, which occurred near the al-Rashid Hotel. On Sunday, a powerful car bomb exploded on the perimeter of the Green Zone, outside the main U.S. compound, killing 31 people and wounding 120.

Also Tuesday, smaller protests were held in the southern, largely Shiite cities of Najaf, Karbala and Basra in what appeared to be a coordinated series of demonstrations. As elsewhere, the protesters demanded that Hussein be executed and rejected his being treated as a prisoner of war.

Although smaller than the march held in Baghdad on Monday, in which tens of thousands of Shiites demanded direct elections for a new Iraqi government, Tuesday's protest reinforced the sense that American officials are facing increasing pressure as they struggle to win support of Iraq's Shiite majority for the U.S. plan to transfer sovereignty by June 30.

The chief U.S. administrator here, L. Paul Bremer, met in New York this week with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. American officials have asked Annan to send a delegation to Iraq to assess electoral conditions, but he has not yet formally responded.

Tuesday's protests were peaceful and carefully coordinated, with members of Sadr's movement controlling the crowds. The son of a prominent ayatollah, Sadr has mobilized poor and disenfranchised young Shiites in recent months, calling for an end to the occupation and direct elections.

He is a young rival of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shiite cleric whose representative addressed Monday's protest and who has been playing an increasingly assertive role in Shiite politics. With frustration rising over joblessness and suspicions increasing about U.S. political aims, mainstream Shiite opinion has begun to mirror Sadr's more assertive stance.

In Najaf, demonstrators Tuesday shouted, "No to America, no to Saddam, no to colonialism." In Baghdad, protesters from Sadr's movement insisted they were in agreement with Sistani's major positions.

"We have no difference with Sistani's followers," said Fadl Zaidani, 32, an unemployed laborer who attended the Baghdad rally with 20 other men from Sadr's headquarters in Sadr City. "We are all asking for direct elections. The Iraqi people have a right to choose their own leaders, not the Americans."

Another emerging theme in the protests, which have gathered momentum across southern Iraq this month, is opposition to federalism -- an arrangement that would guarantee Kurds in northern Iraq autonomy from the government in Baghdad.

Some demonstrators said federalism was another means to curb the authority Shiites should enjoy as the country's majority. Others insisted the issue could be decided only by an elected government that, under the U.S. transition plan, would not take power until 2005.

"Federalism would divide Iraq into many parts, and we condemn it strongly," said Jabbar Azer Jawai, a Shiite cleric at the Baghdad protest. "We want to keep Iraq united among all ethnic groups. If they insist, we will hold larger demonstrations."

But the most emotional issue driving Tuesday's protests was the question of Hussein's status. Shiites endured widespread persecution under his rule, with tens of thousands executed, imprisoned or sent into exile.

Shiites fear his designation as a prisoner of war would allow him to be tried in an international court rather than face Iraqi justice.

"The people demand to put Saddam on trial so the whole world will know how we suffered," said Zaidani, the laborer.

In an effort to ease tension over another contentious issue -- unemployment -- occupation authorities said Monday that new U.S.-funded reconstruction contracts would create 50,000 jobs for Iraqis by July.

Retired Rear Adm. David J. Nash, director of the Program Management Office, which is overseeing the contracts, said companies bidding for 10 prime construction awards would be given financial incentives to hire and train Iraqi workers.

"The success of these reconstruction efforts depends largely on the Iraqi people," Nash said. "It is one thing to restore and rebuild the country's infrastructure, but it is another thing to sustain, to operate and maintain it when the construction has been completed."

Nash said more than 2,300 construction and revitalization projects are scheduled to begin this spring as part of the $18.6 billion in supplemental spending Congress approved last fall. The construction amounts for two-thirds of the spending, and the remaining one-third will go for training and equipment.

Staff writer Jackie Spinner in Washington contributed to this report.

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