Posted on 01/01/2007 1:34:34 PM PST by wagglebee
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government launched an inquiry on Monday into how guards filmed and taunted Saddam Hussein on the gallows, turning his execution into a televised spectacle that has inflamed sectarian anger.
A senior Iraqi official told Reuters the U.S. ambassador tried to persuade Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki not to rush into hanging the former president just four days after his appeal was turned down, urging the government two wait another two weeks.
News of the ousted strongman's death on Saturday and of his treatment by officials of the Shi'ite-led government was blamed by one witness for sparking a prison riot among mainly Sunni Arab inmates at a jail near the northern city of Mosul.
An adviser to Maliki, Sami al-Askari, told Reuters: "There were a few guards who shouted slogans that were inappropriate and that's now the subject of a government investigation."
The government released video showing the hangman chatting to a composed Saddam as he placed the noose round his neck.
But mobile phone footage on the Web showed guards shouting "Go to hell!", chanting the name of a Shi'ite militia leader and exchanging insults with Saddam before he fell through the trap in mid-prayer and his body swung, broken-necked, on the rope.
Saddam's exiled eldest daughter and even some residents of Dujail, the Shi'ite town whose sufferings led to his conviction for crimes against humanity, joined mourning rituals for him, most of these concentrated among Sunni Arabs in Saddam's home region north of Baghdad where he was buried on Sunday.
Mourners continued to arrive at his native village of Awja, near Tikrit. His daughter Raghd, who helped finance his defense from her strictly supervised exile in Jordan, joined several hundred people in the capital Amman in a show of solidarity.
Iraqi troops and police rushed to Mosul's Padush prison to put down a riot after visitors broke news of Saddam's treatment. The governor said seven guards and three prisoners were injured although a visitor reported gunfire and the death of an inmate.
There has been no significant repeat of the series of car bombings that killed over 70 people in Shi'ite neighborhoods on Saturday within hours of the dawn execution, but the government and U.S. forces are on alert for the kind of sectarian violence that has pitched Iraq toward civil war since Saddam's overthrow.
The Interior Ministry ordered the closure of another Iraqi television channel, Sharkiya, accusing it of fomenting hatred. The channel, owned by a London-based businessman who was once an official under Saddam, continued broadcasting from Dubai.
The government has taken similar measures against several channels, all with perceived Sunni leanings.
BUSH STRATEGY
President Bush plans to unveil a new strategy this month after the 3,000th soldier to die in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion was killed just before New Year. At least 112 Americans died in December, the deadliest month for them in more than two years as they struggled to contain the bloodshed.
Two U.S. soldiers died in an explosion on Sunday northeast of Baghdad. U.S. forces said they killed six insurgents in a raid on a suspected al Qaeda safe house in Baghdad.
While Saddam's sentencing and then death brought muted responses from most Sunnis, many have been particularly angered by video showing supporters of Shi'ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr chanting "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!" at him.
"Is this what you call manhood?" Saddam told them in reply.
Maliki adviser Askari said the government would look into how guards in the execution chamber, once used by Saddam's own feared secret police, had smuggled in a mobile phone camera.
Askari said: "They have damaged the image of the Sadrists. That should not have happened. Before we went into the room we had an agreement that no one should bring a mobile phone."
U.S. forces had declined to give Saddam to Iraqis for fear of abuses of his prisoner's rights. They only agreed to hand him over for execution hours before the unannounced hanging.
A government official involved in the talks told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, that U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had urged Maliki to wait another two weeks, until after the long Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, and had insisted on a variety of documents including approval from Iraq's Kurdish president.
"The Americans wanted to delay the execution by 15 days because they weren't keen on having him executed straight away," he said. "But ... the prime minister's office provided all the documents they asked for and the Americans changed their minds when they saw the prime minister was very insistent."
A U.S. embassy spokesman declined immediate comment.
Senior Iraqi officials have forecast a limited New Year offensive by U.S.-led forces against Sadr's Mehdi Army. "There will be limited and targeted operations against members of the Mehdi Army," one senior Shi'ite official said.
Well, the investigation IS directed agianst the guards who taunted him...
Iraqis turn politically correct. How sad. Is there anyone stating that yes it was natural and appropriate for a mass murderer to be taunted at the gallows b y the people he oppressed. Look what they did to Musolini. I'm surprised someone didn't beat the crap out of Saddam. I'm sick of this lack of perspective when it comes to mass murderers.
This certainly drives home the point that it will not be easy to leave this place with a real bonafide government intact. I mean the govt. of Iraq is either totally controlled by radiacal Shia's or they are incompetent. The whole damn place was shouting Sadr's name. Unbelievable.
They need to let the professional "probers" do this. The U.S. Congress. Those buffoons are "probing" fools!
It was one person shouting Sadr's name.
No, but it presents the image that we handed Saddam, and by extention, Iraq, over to Shia fanatics who aren't much better.
The average Iraqi viewer didn't watch that video thinking, "Aw, poor Saddam and his hurt feelings". They did see us hand Saddam over to what appear to be jeering Sadrist thugs, instead of professional, secular agents of the state. Surely you can see why this is not the image we want to be presenting.
Several others were shouting pro-Sadr slogans. The point being, it was a bad scene, and should have been far better screened, controlled, and executed.
Iran and Syria are providing aid to the terrorists operating in Iraq. The war should spread to these state sponsors of international terrorism. But the will is gone. the War On Terror is on hold, perhaps awaiting another major attack (catastrophe would imply accident and it would certainly be deliberate).
Eventually the segregationist Islamic supremacist society of Saudi Arabia will need to be challenged. But for now no one will mention it (except suprisingly Qaddaffi who recently brought up opening Mecca to non-muslims).
I agree 100%...he shouldn't have been humiliated.
I could care less that he was humiliated. But the fact that Sadr's guys are chanting and the hangman himself was taunting him makes the Iraqi govt. look.........hmm temporary shall we say.
I never said that Saddam should have stayed in power. I'm glad we deposed him, and I'm glad he's dead. I'm not glad that Stalin, er, Sadr, is taking over in his place. Following your own analogy, this should make perfect sense.
Malki and his merry men need to be taken to the woodshed for the episode.
Face it. The Iraqis well and truly screwed the pooch on this one. Something as simple and straightforward as executing a prisoner and they well-and-truly mucked it up. Why everyone who entered that chamber wasn't thoroughly frisked/searched is just..........unbelievably, jaw-droppingly stupid.
Not checking the backgrounds of the executioners to discover their pro-Al Sadr sentiments was FAR worse than stupid.
This just confirms, yet again, what I think of Arabs: they'd ***k up a wet dream.
You can take a monkey out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the monkey. These people will never change. I understand their anger just not the way they acted it out. Either way, HE ISN'T COMING BACK! HA! HA! HA!
Sorry...but what point, exactly, are you making?
"urging the government two wait another two weeks." (from article)
If I'm not mistaken, two did wait another two weeks, co-defendants who will hang, and this execution was special for Sowdid Hisownson.
Question: WHen do Tariq Azzis and Baghdad Bob get the rope?
Baghdad Bob will never get the rope since he was deemed irrelevant and now is a TV talking head in Qatar.
Next?
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