U.S. & World News

BAGHDAD (CBS News) ― Two U.S. officials tell CBS News that Saddam Hussein could be hanged within the next few hours.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that U.S. officials say the Iraqi government wants to execute the deposed dictator as soon as possible.

Official witnesses to Saddam's impending execution gathered in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities.

An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday (10 p.m. EST Friday). Also to be hanged at that time were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, the adviser said.

The time was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said the adviser, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Saddam remains in a jail cell in U.S. custody — but once he is given over to Iraqi officials, he could head straight for his execution, reports Martin. And the U.S. military has been prepared since early this morning to turn Saddam over to the Iraqi government.

"Saddam will be handed over shortly before the execution," the official said. The physical transfer of Saddam from U.S. to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged. Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003.

Iraqi officials who are supposed to witness the execution say they have been told it could come at any time, Martin reports.

With U.S. forces on high alert for a surge in violence, the Iraqi government readied all the necessary documents, including a "red card" — an execution order introduced during Saddam's dictatorship. As the hour of his death approached, Saddam received two of his half brothers in his cell on Thursday and was said to have given them his personal belongings and a copy of his will.

According to his lawyer, Saddam sits alone on death row with his Koran, the Muslim holy book, CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports.

Najeeb al-Nueimi, a member of Saddam's legal team in Doha, Qatar, said he too requested a final meeting with the deposed Iraqi leader. "His daughter in Amman was crying, she said 'Take me with you,"' al-Nueimi said late Friday. But he said their request was rejected.

Al-Nueimi said U.S. authorities were maintaining physical custody of Saddam to prevent him from being humiliated before his execution. He said the Americans also want to prevent the mutilation of his corpse, as has happened to other deposed Iraqi leaders.

"The Americans want him to be hanged respectfully," al-Nueimi said. "If Saddam is humiliated publicly or his corpse ill-treated "that could cause an uprising and the Americans would be blamed," he said.

Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said he was ready to attend the hanging and that all the paperwork was in order, including the red card.

"All the measures have been done," Haddad said. "There is no reason for delays."

As American and Iraqi officials met in Baghdad to set the hour of his death, Saddam's lawyers asked a U.S. judge for a stay of execution.

Saddam's lawyers issued a statement Friday calling on "everybody to do everything to stop this unfair execution." The statement also said the former president had been transferred from U.S. custody, though American and Iraqi officials later denied that.

Al-Maliki said opposing Saddam's execution was an insult to his victims. His office said he made the remarks in a meeting with families of people who died during Saddam's rule.

"Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence," al-Maliki said.

State television ran footage of the Saddam era's atrocities, including images of uniformed men placing a bomb next to a youth's chest and blowing him up in what looked like a desert, and handcuffed men being thrown from a high building.

About 10 people registered to attend the hanging gathered in the Green Zone before they were to go to the execution site, the Iraqi official said.

Those cleared to attend the execution included a Muslim cleric, lawmakers, senior officials and relatives of victims of Saddam's brutal rule, the official said. He did not disclose the location of the gallows.

Raed Juhi, spokesman for the High Tribunal court that convicted Saddam, said documents related to the execution would be read to Saddam before the execution. The documents included the red card, al-Maliki's signed approval of the sentence and the appeal court's decision.

On Thursday, two half brothers visited Saddam in his cell, a member of the former dictator's defense team, Badee Izzat Aref, told The Associated Press by telephone from the United Arab Emirates. He said the former dictator handed them his personal belongings.

A senior official at the Iraqi defense ministry also confirmed the meeting and said Saddam gave his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Saddam's lawyers later issued a statement saying the Americans gave permission for his belongings to be retrieved.

An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence Tuesday for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the hanging should take place within 30 days.

There had been disagreements among Iraqi officials in recent days as to whether Iraqi law dictates the execution must take place within 30 days and whether President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies had to approve it.

In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis."

"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves," said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, a dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition. "Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam."

In other developments in Iraq:

The violence was not heavier than usual in Iraq on Friday, three days after an Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence for the 1982 killings of 148 Shiites. The court said the former president should be hanged within 30 days, but his execution appeared likely to take place as soon as Saturday, American and Iraqi officials said. Those officials have also expressed concern about the potential for a spike in bloodshed following Saddam's death.

Already, December was shaping up to be one of the worst months for Iraqi civilian deaths since The Associated Press began keeping track in May 2005. Through Thursday, at least 2,139 Iraqis have been killed in war-related or sectarian violence, an average rate of about 76 people a day, according to an AP count. That compares to November — the worst month for Iraqi civilian deaths since May 2005 — when at least 2,184 were killed at an average of about 70 a day. In October, AP counted at least 1,216 civilians killed.

A suicide bomber killed at least nine people near a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad, and 32 tortured bodies were found across the country Friday as Iraq braced for Saddam Hussein's execution.

American troops killed six people and destroyed a weapons cache in separate raids in Baghdad and northwest of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military said. One of the raids targeted two buildings in the village of Thar Thar, where U.S. troops found 16 pounds of homemade explosives, two large bombs, a rocket-propelled grenade, suicide vests and multiple batteries, the military said.

Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops entered a mosque southeast of Baghdad, capturing 13 suspects and confiscating weapons, the U.S. military also said.

A suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt detonated himself near a Shiite mosque in Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding about a dozen, police said.

Twenty-two bodies showing signs of torture were found dumped on the streets of the Iraqi capital Friday, and 10 more were found in Baqouba northeast of Baghdad, police and morgue officials said.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)