Iraq attacks kill 22, as Saddam faces charges

updated 5:40 a.m. ET July 18, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Suicide bombers killed 22 people in the Baghdad area Sunday, as insurgents stepped up a relentless campaign that claimed more than 90 lives a night before in a bombing near a Shiite mosque south of the capital.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal filed its first criminal case against Saddam Hussein for a 1982 massacre of Shiites and said a trial date would be set within days, despite U.S. fears a trial would inflame tensions at a time the Shiite-led government is trying to lure Sunnis away from the insurgency.

In the past week alone, at least 170 people were killed in suicide bomb attacks throughout Iraq.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed over the weekend, including one on Sunday when a homemade bomb exploded in central Iraq, the military said. At least 1,766 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Elsewhere, one car bomber Sunday struck the offices of Iraq’s electoral commission in eastern Baghdad, killing five election employees and one policeman. The commission said in a statement that it “affirms its determination to continue the electoral process,” including plans for a national referendum on a new constitution and balloting for a new government later this year.

In another suicide attack, insurgents dumped two bodies on the road, then struck police who stopped to inspect them, the U.S. military said. Two policemen and one civilian were killed in the explosion.

About an hour later a suicide car bomber attacked a police convoy near a bus station in southern Baghdad, killing three police commandos and four civilians, police Capt. Talib Thamir said.

Another suicide car bomber missed a U.S. convoy but blasted two minibuses, killing six civilians in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, police Capt. Rashid al-Samarie said.

First criminal case against Saddam
In Baghdad, Raid Juhi, chief judge of the tribunal, announced the first criminal case has been filed against Saddam, stemming from the 1982 massacre of an estimated 150 Shiites in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt.

Juhi said the investigation into the July 8, 1982, massacre in Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad, has been completed, and the case was referred to the courts for trial. The step roughly corresponds to an indictment in the U.S. legal system.

The date for the trial of Saddam and three others was expected to be determined in “the coming days,” Juhi said. If convicted, the four could face the death penalty.

Some U.S. officials have quietly urged the Iraqis to proceed carefully in prosecuting Saddam as the Shiite-led government seeks to draw Sunnis away from the insurgency.

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