Iraqi tribunal releases Saddam video
New poll shows Americans favor at least some troop pullouts
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi special tribunal that is expected to try Saddam Hussein released video Monday of magistrates questioning the former Iraqi dictator.
Wearing a dark-colored jacket and white open-collared shirt, a bearded Saddam appears with four officials from his ousted regime in the tape, which was shot Sunday.
A statement said Saddam was questioned about Dujail, a Shiite Muslim town north of Baghdad, where at least 50 Iraqis were killed in 1982 after an attempt to assassinate Saddam. (Full story)
The tribunal has disputed claims from some Iraqi officials that a trial would start soon.
Addressing CNN's World Report Conference via satellite May 31, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said that a trial for Saddam would begin within two months. (Full story)
Bombings kill seven
A series of car bombings Monday in three Iraqi cities killed seven people and wounded at least 21 others, Iraqi police and the U.S. military said.
In the most deadly attack, a suicide car bomber targeted an Iraqi police patrol in the north-central city of Tikrit, killing three people and wounding 11 others, an Iraqi police official said.
Two police officers were among the dead, and four police were wounded, the official said.
In western Baghdad, a car bomb killed two civilians and wounded five others across the street from a police station in the Ma'amoun neighborhood, Iraqi police officials said.
The attack was targeting a passing U.S. military convoy, a police official said.
In Samarra, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) north-northwest of the capital, a suicide car bomber attacked a U.S.-Iraqi military patrol, killing two Iraqi police officers, an Iraqi police source said.
The blast also wounded five officers in the Iraqi police's Public Order Battalion, a U.S. military spokesman said.
The patrol had a "minimum presence" of U.S. troops, said an American spokesman, 1st Sgt. Brian Thomas.
Bodies found
The bodies of 17 Iraqi civilians were found in a desert in Habbaniya in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the latest in a series of such discoveries, an Iraqi police source said Monday.
The police official said the bodies were brought to Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad.
"We believe that these bodies are those of Iraqi civilians who were working with foreign contractors and were shot dead," the police official said, adding that the civilians were killed Saturday.
Iraqi police said Sunday the bodies of 20 men were found buried southeast of Baghdad. All 20 had gunshot wounds and some showed signs of torture, police said.
The men were found Friday in Nahrawain, a mixed area of Sunnis and Shiites 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the capital, police said.
On Friday, at least 17 bodies in civilian clothes were found near Qaim, a town close to the Syrian border, witnesses told The Associated Press. (Full story)
Police also found three bodies under a bridge Sunday in northwest Baghdad, an official with the emergency police said. The bodies have not been identified.
Three other bodies were found in southeast Baghdad's al-Baladiyat neighborhood Sunday morning, a police official said.
On Saturday, Iraqi police discovered three men shot in southern Baghdad's Dora district.
Poll: Some troop withdrawal favored
More than half of Americans favor withdrawing some or all U.S. troops from Iraq, and for the first time a clear majority said they would be "upset" if President Bush sent more troops there, a recent Gallup poll found.
Fifty-six percent also said said it was not worth going to war with Iraq. That number changed little since the question was asked about five weeks earlier. (Full story)
The survey of 1,003 American adults, conducted by telephone Monday through Wednesday last week, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
In all, 59 percent of those polled said they favored the withdrawal of some or all U.S. troops.
The proportion of respondents who said they would like to see complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq remains relatively small -- 28 percent.
But that number has jumped 11 percentage points since February, when the question was last posed.
Of the 56 percent who said it was not worth going to war with Iraq, most said they felt the United States was not justified in attacking Iraq or that the U.S. government had lied about Iraq harboring weapons of mass destruction.
Another 15 percent said the war was not worthwhile because of the high human cost.
Of the 42 percent of respondents who said the war was worthwhile, 40 percent cited terrorism or an obligation to free the Iraqi people.
Other developments
Two soldiers assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, II Marine Expeditionary Force, were killed Saturday when a bomb detonated near their vehicle during combat operations southeast of Amiriya, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Another such attack Saturday killed two soldiers assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, southwest of Taqaddum, also west of the capital, the military said. The number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war stands at 1,698, according to the U.S. military.A French journalist, Florence Aubenas, and her Iraqi interpreter were freed Sunday after five months in captivity, a French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. (Full story)A British memo prepared eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq warned Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers that American officials had not given enough thought to the aftermath of the fighting and predicted a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation, The Washington Post reported. (Full story)CNN's Kevin Flower, Ayman Mohyeldin, Kianne Sadeq and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
