NEAT IDEA

An art student from Maine, whose studies were delayed when his Army Reserve unit was called to Iraq, hopes to turn a toppled bust of Saddam Hussein into one of the country's first postwar public art projects.

Army Maj. Peter Buotte has lobbied Iraq's Ministry of Culture for permission to use the bronze from a bust of the captured president as a starting point for a project among Iraqi artists...

"If it can be melted down, the intention is to have contact among Iraqi artists and use the material in a new project," Buotte said by telephone from Baghdad. "It seems that it would be kind of fitting."