Bush wish: Dignity at Saddam execution

Baghdad: US President George W Bush said on Thursday that he wished former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's execution had "gone in a more dignified way."

The remark was Bush's first on-camera response to the chaotic scene captured in a cell-phone recording of the former Iraqi dictator's hanging.

"But nevertheless, he was given justice," the president added during a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "The thousands of people he killed were not."

Bush said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had assured him during a two-hour conversation earlier in the day that the execution and its recording would be investigated.

"One thing is for certain," Bush said. "A horrific chapter in Iraqi history has been closed."

Meanwhile Thursday, four decapitated bodies were among the 47 bullet-riddled corpses found around Baghdad as car bombs and mortar attacks killed 20 more people in and around the city.

Police said the four decapitated corpses were found in the Ghazaliya area of western Baghdad and that most of the 47 bodies showed signs of torture.

Separately, two cars packed with explosives and parked behind a gas station in western Baghdad exploded on Thursday morning, killing at least 13 and wounding 22 more, authorities said.

The twin car bomb blasts occurred in quick succession as civilians waited in line to buy heating fuel in the Mansour neighborhood of western Baghdad, according to police.

A third car bomb blast, also in Mansour, killed a civilian and wounded an Iraqi soldier when it was detonated by a suicide bomber near an Iraqi army convoy, according to an Interior Ministry official.

In addition to the bombs, a mortar attack northwest of Baghdad, in Saba al-Bour, killed one civilian and wounded six others, an interior ministry official told CNN.

Another mortar attack on the Shiite neighbourhood of Amel in western Baghdad killed five civilians and wounded four, the official said.

The violence and Bush's remarks came amid criticism of the Iraqi government's handling of Hussein's execution Saturday morning.

A second security guard was detained for questioning Thursday, suspected of recording and distributing a cell phone video of Hussein's hanging, including taunts and heated exchanges between Hussein and others present, according to Sami al-Askari, an aide to the Iraqi prime minister.