VATICAN CITY, Dec 16: A top Vatican official said on Tuesday he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein and criticised the US military for showing video footage of him being treated “like a cow”.

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations, told a news conference it would be “illusory” to think the arrest of the former Iraqi president would heal all the damage caused by a war which the Holy See opposed.

“I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures,” he said.

“Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him,” he said in answer to questions about Saddam’s arrest.

Martino was referring to the videotape released by the US military which showed a grubby, bearded and dishevelled Saddam receiving a medical examination by a military doctor after his capture in an underground hole on Saturday.

Martino was one of the Vatican officials most strongly opposed to the US-led invasion of Iraq.

“It’s true that we should be happy that this (arrest) has come about because it is the watershed that was necessary... we hope that this will not have worse and other serious consequences,” Martino said.

“But it is not the total solution to the problems of the Middle East,” he said.

The Vatican did not consider the war in Iraq “a just war” because it was not backed by the United Nations and because the Vatican believed more negotiations were necessary to avoid it.

SWIPE: Pope John Paul took a swipe at the United States and its allies on Tuesday for invading Iraq without UN approval, suggesting they had succumbed to the temptation to use the law of force instead of the force of law.