-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

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.]

*
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
List Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (FreeBSD)

iD8DBQFFrUbAiz2i76ou9wQRAiMoAKCe/dRXnF+0ZaBhYVCuB34vgaOMbwCgxXmN
Si5+wF1JAOEJKGkWS/ijmfI=
=yXGo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----