HUSSEIN ERA ENDS, BUT NOT VIOLENCE

It was a moment many Iraqis dreamed of during the Saddam Hussein era, broadcast on national television Saturday: guards in black ski masks looping a rope around the former president’s neck.

By afternoon, smudgy footage had been released of his slightly bruised body, wrapped in a white sheet with head exposed. Later, a jerky video apparently taken with a cellphone showed the former dictator swinging from the bulky noose.

“Thank God a bloody chapter was ended,” national security advisor Mowaffak Rubaie announced on U.S.-funded Al Hurra television. “This is a new Iraq.”

But outside the Green Zone, and the bubble of optimism surrounding the Iraqi government, executions of a different sort spoiled any hopes of even momentary peace. On the streets of Iraq, the hallmarks of Hussein’s regime -- fear, deprivation and violence -- still prevailed.

Across the country Saturday, explosions killed at least 78 people, police said, including 38 who died in a double car bombing in Hurriya, a mainly Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Baghdad.

Sixteen corpses were found in the capital in a 24-hour period ending Saturday. Dumped bodies, often showing signs of torture, have been a signature of Shiite death squads.

Much of the day’s violence appeared unrelated to the execution of the former Sunni leader and more a function of the sectarian strife that is expected to persist despite his death.

In a small concrete room where he was executed, Hussein was defiant even in his last moments, shouting Baath Party slogans as the prosecutor read his death warrant, said Mariam Rayis, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s legal advisor. The doctor who attended the execution advised Hussein to ask forgiveness, but he refused, Rayis said.

Later, the body was taken to Maliki’s office in the Green Zone. After a brief viewing by select witnesses, the room was closed until late Saturday, when the body was loaded onto a helicopter and flown to Tikrit, Hussein’s hometown, for burial overnight, Rayis said.

Hussein’s eldest daughter, who lives in exile in Jordan and is wanted in Iraq, had said she wanted to bury him in Yemen, where she could visit his gravesite, defense lawyer Bushra Khalil said, and the Yemeni president had agreed to accept the body.

But Hussein’s tribe asked to bury the body in Al Auja, the former president’s birthplace and the village where his sons Uday and Qusai were buried after they died in a gun battle with U.S. forces in 2003. Hussein was buried in the village apart from his sons shortly before sunrise today, provincial Gov. Hamad Humood said, adding that he accompanied the body on a U.S. aircraft from Baghdad.

Iraqi leaders, fearing political problems, decided to hand over the body to provincial and tribal leaders in Tikrit rather than allow it to leave the country, Rayis said.

A Maliki advisor had earlier said the government wanted Hussein’s gravesite kept secret to prevent it from becoming a shrine among supporters. But Rayis said the administration wasn’t worried about pilgrims flocking to Tikrit.

“His tribe asked for this, and we decided it was the humanitarian thing to do,” she said.

Rayis said the body was released with the understanding that tribal leaders would be “as discreet as they can be” and not hold a large public funeral.

At the family’s request, Iraqi security forces traveled with the body to ensure that it was not desecrated, Rayis said. “He was treated with the utmost respect,” Rayis said, “which he never provided for anyone else.”

The execution of Hussein, 69, brought closure not only to his bloody reign, but also to his nearly yearlong trial, during which three defense lawyers and a witness were killed. Raed Juhi, an investigative judge and spokesman for the Iraqi High Tribunal that tried Hussein, said the deaths were the price Iraq paid for democracy.

“When the Americans built and constructed their democracy, there was a lot of bloodshed, starting from George Washington,” Juhi said. “Building a nation, it is always possible that it will require sacrifices.”

Hours after the execution, a man named Mustafa Mohammed Ali whipped out a remote control in a crowded market in the mostly Shiite southern city of Kufa, preparing to detonate a car bomb planted nearby.

The crowd tried to stop him.

“When he was caught by the people, the remote control fell down from his hand. He pressed the button by his leg and the explosion happened,” said Majid Hamad, 22, a laborer who witnessed the attack.

About 34 people were killed, said Munther Ethari, provincial health manager. Among the body parts and belongings that littered the scene, the angry mob of survivors found Ali still alive.

Their retribution was swift, Hamad said.

“The people killed him with knives, they trampled on his body until the Iraqi police came and took his corpse,” he said.

Even after police arrived, witnesses said, officers did not stop the crowd from stabbing and beating Ali to death. Kufa’s mayor, Aba Thar, standing amid the crowd, was matter-of-fact in describing the spontaneous execution. “The people killed the man who executed the operation,” he said.

The rule of law was just as fragile in Sunni strongholds.

In the mostly Sunni Baghdad neighborhood of Amariya, youths in a funereal procession of about 20 sedans and motorcycles chanted as they fired machine guns and AK-47s.

In Tikrit and Samarra, another mostly Sunni city north of Baghdad, armed demonstrators protesting Hussein’s execution fired their guns in the air as they marched and called for revenge against the government.

A Samarra demonstrator, Mustafa Abdul-Rihman, 53, described the execution as “pure sectarian elimination of people.”

“This government is far away from legitimacy and law,” he said.

The U.S. military announced that a soldier with the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, was killed Saturday in combat in western Al Anbar province and that two soldiers were killed Friday by roadside bombs in Baghdad. Their deaths bring the total U.S. casualties in Iraq to 2,998 since the war began in March 2003, according to icasualties.org.

In Mosul, mechanic Menhil Hashim Ubaidi, 30, said that compared with the killing he sees, Hussein got off easy.

“We see tens of dead bodies on the ground every day killed by the most terrible ways. And we do not see someone asking about what they did or asking for their rights,” he said.

“He does not even deserve to be executed this easily. I think he should have been executed by the children of Iraq through hammering nails in each millimeter of his filthy body.”

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

Times staff writers Said Rifai and Suhail Affan, special correspondent Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf and correspondents in Baghdad, Mosul and Samarra contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Leaders from Hussein’s regime

In addition to those convicted with Saddam Hussein, these are 10 of the most prominent Iraqis on the U.S. Defense Department’s most-wanted list when the March 2003 invasion began:

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Qusai Hussein

Son of Hussein;

chief of special security organization,

Special Republican Guard

Killed in 2003

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Uday Hussein

Son of Hussein;

member of the National Assembly, Olympic Committee

Killed in 2003

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Abid Hamid Mahmud

Hussein’s personal secretary, national security advisor and senior bodyguard

In custody since 2003

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Ali Hassan Majid

Revolutionary Command Council member; known as Chemical Ali;

currently on trial

In custody since 2003

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Izzat Ibrahim

Revolutionary Command Council vice chairman

Reportedly died in 2005

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Mohammed Hamza Zubaidi

Deputy prime minister

Died in 2005

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Taha Yassin Ramadan

Iraqi vice president

In custody since 2003. Sentenced to life in prison

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Kamal Mustafa Abdullah

Hussein’s son-in-law; secretary, Republican Guard

In custody since 2003

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Barzan Abd Ghafur Salayman Majid

Commander, Special Republican Guard

In custody since 2003

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Tarik Aziz

Foreign minister;

testified at Hussein’s trial

In custody since 2003

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Source: U.S. Central Command; Times reporting