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> Iraqi Lynchings Bring More Denunciations
>
> Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
>
> The Washington Post - Jan 16, 2007
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011500401_pf...
>
> Iraqi Hangings Bring More Denunciations
>
> Head of Hussein's Half Brother Is Severed
>
> By Joshua Partlow and Muhanned Saif Aldin
> Washington Post Foreign Service
>
> BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 -- By the time the corpses of Saddam Hussein's half
> brother and another top official, hanged before dawn Monday, arrived in
> the village of Auja for burial, the word had spread among the mourners:
> The head of Hussein's brother had been severed from his body.
>
> Many of the people who had gathered considered the decapitation of
> Barzan Ibrahim to be a calculated insult, another act by the
> Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to
> humiliate followers of the executed former president and all his fellow
> Sunni Arabs. A doctor inspected the remains to assess the government's
> explanation that the noose inadvertently took off the head after
> Ibrahim dropped through the trapdoor of the scaffold.
>
> "We knew that he would be executed and would join a parade of heroes,
> but Maliki, why did you behead him?" asked Salam al-Tikriti, 41, a
> relative of Ibrahim. "Why did you insult his body? Are you still afraid
> of him even after he is dead? We will cut your heads the same way that
> you are cutting the heads of the heroes of Iraq."
>
> In many parts of Iraq, the executions set off new waves of anger and
> celebration along sectarian lines, though Maliki's government had gone
> to great pains to prevent the type of chaotic spectacle that
> accompanied Hussein's hanging two weeks ago, when Shiite witnesses in
> the execution chamber taunted Hussein.
>
> Shiites celebrated the new executions, while Sunni politicians vented.
> Alaa Makki, a Sunni legislator, said that justice was done but the
> manner of the execution was disturbing. "Everybody knows that when you
> hang people, rarely the head will be decapitated from the body," he
> said, criticizing what he called a "revenge on the body."
>
> "It denotes that people are very reactive and very extremist and they
> want revenge," he said.
>
> Hussein al-Falluji, another Sunni legislator, called the executions
> "illegitimate and illegal."
>
> The hangings drew criticism from abroad as well. The Moroccan Human
> Rights Association said they were a "criminal political assassination
> masterminded by American imperialism."
>
> A U.N. spokesman expressed regret that Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's
> request to spare the two men's lives was not granted. Jos? Manuel
> Barroso, president of the European Commission, the European Union's
> executive arm, said after the hangings that he would back an Italian
> initiative for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment under U.N.
> auspices.
>
> Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visiting Egypt, said she believed
> the hangings of Hussein and the two others were mishandled and should
> have been carried out with "greater dignity."
>
> Ibrahim, who ran Hussein's intelligence service, or Mukhabarat, and
> Awad Haman Bander, leader of Hussein's Revolutionary Court, were put to
> death at 3 a.m. Monday, government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said. They had
> been sentenced to death for their role in the killings of 148 men and
> boys from the Shiite village of Dujail following an assassination
> attempt against Hussein in 1982.
>
> Iraqi officials denied that the decapitation was intentional, saying
> that Ibrahim's neck had been unable to absorb the noose's force.
> Dabbagh described it as a "rare incident" in a hanging and said that
> the proceeding was marked by professionalism and restraint not shown
> during Hussein's execution.
>
> For Monday's hangings, the Iraqi government restricted the witnesses to
> a judge, a prosecutor, a doctor, a prison warden and representatives of
> the Interior Ministry and the prime minister's office, Dabbagh said.
> They made the attendees sign documents pledging they would not
> misbehave, Dabbagh added.
>
> "Everyone obeyed the instructions of the government; no violation,
> chant, slogans or words that would harm the execution of this verdict
> was registered," he said.
>
> Iraqi officials showed silent video clips of the hangings to reporters
> at a news conference but did not release the footage to the public.
>
> According to an Associated Press account of the video, the two
> defendants appeared side by side at the gallows wearing red prison
> jumpsuits. They were surrounded by five masked men, and black hoods
> were placed over their heads. After the trapdoors beneath them opened,
> Bander dangled from the rope, but the shock of the rope going taut
> severed Ibrahim's head from his body, both of which fell to the floor,
> the news service reported.
>
> By 6 p.m., the bodies had arrived in Auja, about 100 miles north of
> Baghdad, and were greeted by more than 1,000 people. The crowd carried
> the corpses, wrapped in Iraqi flags, on their shoulders into a hall as
> chants rang out of "Allahu akbar" -- "God is great" -- and guns were
> fired into the air.
>
> The bodies were washed and wrapped in white shrouds before being buried
> in a garden plot next to the hall that houses Hussein's grave. The
> crowd surrounded the bodies, and the sound of crying mixed with chanted
> praises to God.
>
> "We are so proud that [Bander] died as a martyr defending his beliefs,"
> said Abdulla al-Sadoon, 55, a relative of Bander from Basra. "It is a
> proud thing to die like this."
>
> Top officials from Salahuddin province attended the burials, and the
> funerals for Bander and Ibrahim were expected to last three days.
>
> The hangings occurred on a day when two top outgoing U.S. officials in
> Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad,
> told reporters that they were optimistic about the new plan to secure
> Baghdad, saying they sensed a deeper commitment by the Iraqi government
> to combat Sunni and Shiite extremists who are fighting in the capital.
>
> The Shiite-led Iraqi security forces have been widely accused of
> operating death squads that target Sunnis while allowing Shiite
> militias in the capital free rein. But Casey added that he did not
> expect to see significant improvement in Baghdad's security until the
> summer or fall.
>
> "There is a strong political commitment from the government of Iraq to
> the plan, including the will to act, and including the will not to
> impose constraints on coalition and Iraqi security forces," Casey said,
> adding: "As with any plan, there are no guarantees of success, and it's
> not going to happen overnight. But with sustained political support and
> concentrated efforts on all sides, I believe that this plan can work."
>
> President Bush has committed to send an additional 21,500 troops to
> Iraq in order to maintain a more visible presence in Baghdad's
> embattled neighborhoods and provide more support for Iraqi troops. The
> first of the reinforcements have arrived, Casey said.
>
> "Yes, there are still difficulties with the Iraqi security forces; that
> has been a challenge," he said. "The increased deployment of coalition
> forces will enable us to increase the level of support we are providing
> to those forces, to strengthen them a little bit as we go forward with
> this plan."
>
> Also on Monday, the U.S. military announced that a U.S. soldier from
> the 89th Military Police Brigade died Sunday when a roadside bomb
> exploded near his vehicle north of Baghdad. The soldier's name was not
> released.
>
> [Aldin reported from Auja. Special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Saad
> al-Izzi in Baghdad contributed to this report.]
>
> *
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