US President George W. Bush said Tuesday that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein should face "the ultimate penalty" as the CIA took charge of interrogating the ousted Iraqi dictator.
The administration has made it known the US would not object if Saddam was given the death penalty, even though this could reopen divisions with the UN and even some allies who oppose execution.
"We'll see what penalty he gets. But I think he ought to receive the ultimate penalty ... for what he has done to his people," Bush said in an interview with ABC television.
"He is a torturer, a murderer, and they had rape rooms, and this is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice," Bush went on.
Without mentioning explicit support for the death penalty in Saddam's case, the US president has made it clear he favors a hard line.
"I've got my own personal views of how he ought to be treated," Bush told a press conference on Monday, rejoicing at the capture of the ex-dictator at a remote farmhouse in northern Iraq on Saturday.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the CIA has been put in charge of questioning Saddam to get information on how to end the growing insurgency in the country.
Saddam will remain in US military custody at a secret location, but CIA director George Tenet will manage the former Iraqi leader's interrogation, Rumsfeld said.
Bush said he had no desire for a personal encounter with Saddam, who is alleged to have organized a plot to assassinate his father ex-president George Bush.
"I've seen enough of him. I saw him getting deloused and after having been pulled out of a rat hole," he said.
But the US leader also insisted in the ABC interview that he did not want a "kangaroo court" for Saddam and that it was for Iraqis to decide the trial and punishment without an American presence.
A senior State Department official also made it clear that Washington would not oppose the death penalty.
"From our perspective, we want to see a fair, transparent and credible process unfold," the official said on condition of anonymity, "and if that occurs, whatever punishment that they deem is appropriate, as long as it is fairly administered then we will be satisfied."
No details have been announced about how or when Saddam will be tried, but the president of the US-installed interim Iraqi Governing Council, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, has said Saddam could face the death penalty if convicted in an Iraqi court.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has already come out strongly against capital punishment however.
"This should be done through open trials in properly established courts of law which will respect basic international norms and standards, including respect for international humanitarian law," Annan said Monday.
"The UN does not support the death penalty and all the courts we've set up have not included the death penalty. So as secretary general and the UN as an organization are not going to now turn around and support the death penalty."
Britain, the main US ally in the Iraq war, has also signalled opposition to execution for Saddam.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday: "We have abolished the death penalty here, we are opposed to the death penalty and its use in other countries, and we campaign hard to try and extend the abolition of the death penalty."
Emilio Vianno, an expert on international law, said Bush knows a death penalty will cause international controversy.
"He prefers to leave it to the Iraqis to take responsibility for the trial because he is certain that the Iraqis will not hesitate to execute him," Vianno said.
Vianno also said the US does not want an international trial as it could raise past links between the Saddam regime and US administrations.
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