Investigators have identified two guards who illicitly filmed Saddam Hussein's execution, an official said today, as the Iraqi government sought to dampen growing outrage from Sunni Arabs over the unruly hanging.
The mobile phone video of Shia officials taunting Saddam on the gallows has inflamed sectarian passions in a country on the brink of civil war.
"Two Justice Ministry guards have been arrested. Other guards have identified them as having filmed the hanging," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's aide said.
Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told a news conference: "The investigation is ongoing and we have identified those who flouted the rules ... Even for a dictator like Saddam, the law must be obeyed."
US President George Bush told the Iraqi prime minister tonight that "it was the right thing to do" to investigate the mobile phone video of Saddam Hussein at his hanging, the White House media spokesman said.
"He simply said that it was the right thing to do, that there were concerns in this country and around the world about it and that he thought that the prime minister was doing the right thing by taking a look at it," Tony Snow said, recounting what Mr Bush told Iraqi leader.
A prosecutor who attended the execution said he had seen two senior officials filming the hanging, prompting suggestions among some Iraqis that the guards might be used as scapegoats.
The images, which show observers yelling "Go to hell" and chanting the name of a radical Shia cleric before Saddam falls through the trap, have sparked angry demonstrations by Saddam's fellow Sunnis, fearful of Shia ascendancy.
Moderate Sunnis say it deals a blow to Mr Maliki's call for reconciliation.
Philip Alston, the United Nations' special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said the "humiliating" way in which Saddam was put to death was a clear violation of international human rights law.
The US military, which kept physical custody of Saddam for three years, said it had played no role in the execution and would have done things "differently".
Today White House spokesman Tony Fratto responded to questions about the forthcoming executions of two other men convicted with Saddam of crimes against humanity by saying: "We expect Iraqi officials to handle their business with appropriate care."
Barzan al-Tikriti, one of Saddam's half-brothers and his former intelligence chief, and Awad al-Bander, a former judge, were found guilty with Saddam two months ago over the killings of 148 Shia men from the town of Dujail in the 1980s.
Bander presided over the court that ordered the men's deaths. Officials have said they will take more precautions for the executions of Barzan and Bander, including checking witnesses for cameras and mobile phones.
Bahaa al-Araji, a lawmaker for radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political group, said he believed the executions would be delayed until Sunday, the first working day after the weekend and the Eid al-Adha holiday.
Mr Maliki has already signed the death warrants - in red ink - as part of an order authorising the execution of Saddam.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urged Iraq not to execute the men out of respect for international law and concerns over the fairness and impartiality of the trial.
Mr Maliki had brushed aside a similar appeal from Arbour before Saddam was executed, and shocked many in Iraq and the rest of the Muslim world by having him hanged on the first day of Eid.
Thousands of Sunni Arabs have marched in the Sunni heartland to vent anger at the execution, and mourners have flocked to Saddam's grave in his home village of Awja.
Today, hundreds of Shias marched in the southern city of Basra to support the execution in a demonstration organised by the local office of Mr Maliki's Dawa party.