BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Cornered alone in a cramped hole near one of his sumptuous palaces, a weary, disheveled Saddam Hussein was seized by U.S. troops and displayed on television screens worldwide Sunday, a humiliating fate for one of history's most brutal dictators.

The man who waged and lost two wars against the United States and its allies was armed with a pistol when captured in a Styrofoam-covered underground hide-out, but did not resist, the U.S. military said. In the broadcast images, he resembled a desperate fugitive, not an all-powerful president who had ordered his army to fight to the death.

''Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,'' U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told a news conference. ''The tyrant is a prisoner.''

''He was just caught like a rat,'' said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, whose 4th Infantry Division troops staged the raid. ''When you're in the bottom of a hole you can't fight back.''

Whether Saddam's capture would curtail Iraq's insurgency, however, was unclear. President Bush cautioned that more anti-coalition attacks were expected, and Odierno said the lack of communications equipment in the hide-out indicated Saddam was not commanding the resistance.

Early Monday, a car bomb went off outside a police station in western Baghdad, injuring at least four people, witnesses said. The blast in the Ameriyah district appeared to target the police force's bureau of criminal investigations. Four people were seen being carried away from the scene.

U.S. officials declined to specify Saddam's whereabouts, saying late Sunday only that he had been moved to a secure location. The Dubai-based Arab TV station Al-Arabiya said he was taken to Qatar, though that could not be confirmed.

The Americans made clear, however, that Saddam faces intensive interrogation - foremost, what he knows about the ongoing insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation, and later about his regime's unconventional weapons programs.

During the arrest of Saddam, U.S. troops discovered ''descriptive written material of significant value,'' another U.S. commander told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. He declined to say whether the material related to the anti-coalition resistance.

Saddam, who could face trial before a new Iraqi tribunal for war crimes, was defiant when top Iraqi officials visited him in captivity hours later - people at the meeting said he refused to admit to human rights abuses.

Saddam will now ''face the justice he denied to millions,'' said President Bush, whose troops and intelligence agents had been searching in vain for Saddam since April. ''In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over.''

The raid by 600 soldiers and special forces took place Saturday night at a farm in Adwar, 10 miles from Saddam's home town of Tikrit, less than three hours after the pivotal tip was received from an Iraqi.

The informant was a member of a family close to Saddam,'' Odierno told reporters in Tikrit. ''Finally we got the ultimate information from one of these individuals.''

After a helicopter took Saddam to Baghdad, U.S. officials brought in former regime officials, including deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, to confirm Saddam's identity, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Eager to prove to Iraqis that Saddam was in custody, the U.S. military showed video of the ousted leader, haggard and gray-bearded, as a military doctor examined him. In Baghdad, radio stations played jubilant music.

and some bus passengers shouted, ''They got Saddam! They got Saddam!''

In northern Kirkuk, eight people were killed and 80 wounded by shots fired in the air during celebrations of the capture, said hospital official Shehab Ahmed.

''I'm very happy for the Iraqi people. Life is going to be safer now,'' said Yehya Hassan, 35, of Baghdad. ''Now we can start a new beginning.''

But some residents of Adwar recalled fondly how Saddam used to swim in the nearby Tigris River and bemoaned the capture of the leader who donated generously to area residents.

''This is bad news to all Iraqis,'' said Ammar Zidan, 21. ''Even if they captured Saddam Hussein, we are all Saddam Hussein. We want freedom and independence from the Americans.''

Saddam was captured almost five months after his sons, Qusai and Odai, were killed July 22 in a gunbattle with U.S. troops in the northern city of Mosul. Coalition officials hoped the sons' deaths would weaken the Iraqi resistance; instead the guerrilla campaign escalated.