Saddam Hussein would be given a fair trial in a way that will withstand international scrutiny, President Bush said yesterday, write Conor O'Clery in New York, Lara Marlowe in Paris, Jack Fairweather in Baghdad.
The US president said Iraqis would decide if the former dictator, captured by US troops at the weekend, will be executed.
Putting the former dictator to death was a distinct possibility, the head of Iraq's governing council said in Paris.
"The Iraqi president will be tried by an Iraqi tribunal," said Sayyid Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the Shia cleric who now holds the council's rotating presidency. "If it is proven that he is guilty, and that the clauses of the law apply to him, he could be condemned to capital punishment."
Mr Bush said the most important thing about detaining Saddam was that Iraqis would no longer have an excuse for sitting on the fence and not supporting the coalition.
Speaking at a press conference in the White House, he said: "We will work with the Iraqis to develop a way to try him that will stand international scrutiny." There needed to be a public trial "and all the atrocities need to come out", he said.
"We want the world to say, well, he got a fair trial. Because whatever justice is meted out needs to stand international scrutiny."
Asked if he supported execution for Saddam, who was deposed in April, Mr Bush said he had his own personal views but "it's going to be up to the Iraqis to make those decisions".
The US occupation authority in Iraq has suspended the death penalty, and Iraqi officials have said they will decide whether to reinstate it when sovereignty is returned.
The former dictator was apparently giving his captors limited co-operation yesterday. Information from him, plus documents in a briefcase found during his capture, led to the arrest of two key figures in Baghdad wanted by the US authorities.
Some people on the streets of the capital were demanding that Saddam be brought quickly to justice in an Iraqi court. Many said they would only be happy if they saw him executed.
But elsewhere, supporters protested, declaring: "We want Saddam back." Police fired into the air to disperse them.
In separate incidents in and near Baghdad, two car bombs placed near police facilities killed eight people and wounded 27.
Mr Bush, who discussed the trial of Saddam by telephone with Canada's new Prime Minister Mr Paul Martin, said he told him the Iraqis need to be very much involved in bringing him to justice.
"They were the people that were brutalised by this man. He murdered them, he gassed them, he tortured them, he had rape rooms."
Asked what he would say to Saddam, Mr Bush replied: "Good riddance. The world is better off without you, Mr Saddam Hussein. I find it very interesting that when the heat got on, you dug yourself a hole and you crawled in it.
"And our brave troops, combined with good intelligence, found you. And you'll be brought to justice, something you did not afford the people you brutalised in your own country."
Mr Bush said that Saddam's capture should make it clear to Iraqis "that he's through, that people no longer have to hold back their sentiments and their feelings towards living in a free society because he might re-emerge. That's the most important thing about this capture - he can no longer provide any excuse for some who were afraid to act."
He warned of more violence from "holdovers of Saddam" and "foreign terrorists that cannot stand the thought of a free Iraq emerging in the Middle East".
Mr Bush learned of Saddam's capture on Saturday but did not tell his father - whom Saddam allegedly tried to assassinate - until Sunday.
The former president Bush called to congratulate him. "And so I told my Dad, I said, 'it's a great day for America, but it's a better day for the people of [Iraq]'," Mr Bush said.