BAGHDAD, Iraq — Wisam Younis' sole ambition in life, he said yesterday, is to kill Americans. So he claimed surprise when he discovered his car bomb had killed eight Iraqis and wounded more than 80 outside a Baghdad restaurant.

Younis and brothers Badr and Yassin Shakir are charged with murder and face the death penalty in the Monday attack.

"We did not know that the attack would target innocent people and we were deceived," said Younis, barefooted and with bruised and swollen hands. He said they were taken in by enthusiastic ideas and money, adding that an insurgent leader promised $1,500 for the bombing.

"Our doctrine is to wage jihad against the Americans," Younis, wearing a stained beige traditional robe, told an Associated Press reporter as police stood over him. "Driving out the occupiers is the demand of all Iraqis. ... I wish to die in the battlefield instead of prison."

Baghdad police paraded out the three Sunni Arabs to help put a face to a deadly insurgency, and to show that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari means business with a plan to encircle Baghdad with thousands of security forces.

The display also was meant to reassure a public whose discontent with the Shiite-led government has been high because of its seeming inability to provide security and crush the insurgency.

Car bombings and other violence have led to more than 650 deaths since al-Jaafari's government was announced April 28, according to the Associated Press.

Iraqi authorities are preparing for what a U.S. general described as "a very large operation" involving more than 40,000 Iraqi police and soldiers backed by American troops and air support.

Operation Lightning has received planning and logistical support from U.S. troops who are keen to train and equip Iraqi security forces so they can eventually take over security in the capital.

It was unclear why Defense and Interior Ministers Bayan Jabr and Saadoun al-Duleimi chose to announce the operation before it fully got under way — making it known to the insurgents it was designed to capture.