IRAQ:The Iraqi government is set to hang at dawn today two former officials of the Baathist regime.
Ousted president Saddam Hussein's half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Takriti and former chief of the revolutionary court Awad Ahmad Bandar were sentenced to death alongside Saddam on November 5th for the killing of 148 Shias from the town of Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt on the Iraqi leader.
Saddam was hanged on December 30th and buried the next day at his home village of al-Auja.
Barzan was one of Saddam's closest confidants, although their relationship went through rocky periods when Barzan fled Iraq to evade the wrath of the president. In 1988 Barzan was appointed the Iraqi government's representative to the UN in Geneva, where he dealt with the regime's foreign finances and reportedly put away large sums for Saddam's personal use.
Barzan's execution may make it all the more difficult to trace billions allegedly salted away in foreign banks.
Television broadcasts of mobile-phone video coverage showing Saddam being taunted by Shia guards during his execution have whipped up tensions between Sunnis and Shias and prompted Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to call for an investigation into who took the video. Sunnis throughout the region accuse the Iraqis of conducting a sectarian lynching, while Arab leaders are offended and outraged by the demeaning treatment Saddam received during his last moments. An unidentified official was detained yesterday.
In an attempt to distance the US from the row over the video, military spokesman Maj Gen William Caldwell said US forces transferred Saddam to the "physical control" of Iraqi officials shortly before the hanging and all US personnel had left the execution facility before Saddam was dispatched.
"It's a sovereign nation. It's their decision and it's their responsibility to decide how things go . . . If you're asking me if we would have done things differently, yes we would have. But that's not our decision, that's the government of Iraq's decision."
Meanwhile the Iraqi ministries of health, defence and interior reported that 13,896 Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police died violently in 2006. The civilian toll was 12,357, about 5,000, or about 40 per cent, during the last three months of the year. The number of members of the Iraqi security forces killed rose to 1,539, nearly twice the 823 US military fatalities.
However, the count made by the UN Assistance Ministry for Iraq gives higher figures than those published by the government. Although figures for the last two months have not yet been released, the UN reported 26,782 deaths during the first 10 months, nearly double the government figure.
The UN estimates that 100 Iraqis are killed every day and 3,000 flee the country and that 1.6 million have left since the US war began in March 2003.