IRAQ ROUNDUP \ An update

The latest developments in Iraq:
A haughty Saddam Hussein informed a courtroom Wednesday that only he, and not his co-defendants, should be held responsible for the death and destruction that took place under his rule. The one-time president, who is standing trial for crimes against humanity, said he ordered 148 residents of a Shiite town to stand trial after an assassination attempt in 1982. The people, including children, were later tortured and executed. Saddam delivered the unexpected admission in one of the rambling, impromptu outbursts that have come to characterize the trial. Witnesses were irrelevant and his co-defendants should be released, he told the judge. "If I hadn't wanted to, I wouldn't have sent them to the revolutionary court. But I did," he said. "And they were charged according to the law, just like you charge people according to the law. ... When the person says he's responsible, why go to others and search? Saddam Hussein was a leader and says, 'I'm responsible.'" Legal experts say the admission plays into the hands of prosecutors. Saddam's defense team could be hard-pressed to prove he does not bear responsibility for atrocities that happened under his command, analysts said.
Key political groups agreed Wednesday to mount a campaign to deny Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari another term in a bid to jump-start stalled talks on a new national unity government. The move against al-Jaafari is expected to draw sharp opposition from the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The firebrand Shiite leader's support enabled al-Jaafari to win the nomination over Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi by a single vote in a Feb. 12 caucus of Shiites elected to the new parliament Dec. 15. Al-Sadr's militiamen were believed behind many of the attacks against Sunni mosques last week, and the prospect of a prime minister in debt to the young radical has alarmed mainstream politicians, including some in the Shiite alliance.
At least 47 people died in bombings and shootings across Iraq. In the deadliest attack, a car bomb exploded near a market and traffic police office in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in southeast Baghdad, killing 29 people and wounding 67, the Interior Ministry said. Dazed, bloodied victims of the car bombing were rushed to Kindi Hospital, where staff cut off the shirt of a screaming child whose face and arms were singed in the blast. Another bomb hidden under a parked car detonated as a police patrol was passing near downtown Tahrir Square. The patrol escaped unharmed, but six civilians were killed and 17 wounded, the Interior Ministry said. North of the capital, gunmen ambushed a convoy of police trainees about 20 miles south of Kirkuk, killing five and wounding 11, police said. South of the capital, mortar shells slammed into a market in the volatile, Shiite-Sunni town of Mahmoudiya, killing two civilians and wounding three, the ministry said. Another shell landed in a house in a mixed western Baghdad neighborhood, killing a woman and wounding a child, police said. At least four other people were killed in shootings in Baqouba and Kut.
Source: Combined dispatches