WP A1: Iraq to Probe Disorder at Hussein's Execution

[Pirate Smile]

Iraq to Probe Disorder at Hussein's Execution

By Sudarsan Raghavan and Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, January 3, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 -- As thousands of Saddam Hussein's supporters protested in Sunni Arab enclaves across Iraq, the Shiite-led government said it had launched an investigation into the chaotic scene at his execution, captured on video, which has deepened the nation's sectarian rift and sparked condemnation around the world.

Iraqi officials said a committee from the Interior Ministry would likely question everyone, including senior Iraqi officials, who was present at the hanging, where witnesses mocked and jeered the ousted president as he stood at the gallows. Hours later, grainy video of the event, taken with a cellphone camera, was broadcast around the world, bringing more pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take action.

-snip-
The probe could implicate senior Iraqi officials. Munqith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor in Hussein's trial, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he saw two official observers using their cellphones to record Hussein's last moments. The two men, he said, were "recording through their mobiles openly." He said he did not recognize them, but could do so if he saw them again.

Maliki aides said they did not think any officials were behind the video.

"I think one of the guards, but let us leave everything to the inquiry," Rikabi said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010200421.html

Oh geez, let the farce continue.

[Pirate Smile]

1. Have no fear, the Iraqi Interior Ministry will solve everything. - Yeah, right!

"The probe could implicate senior Iraqi officials. Munqith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor in Hussein's trial, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he saw two official observers using their cellphones to record Hussein's last moments. The two men, he said, were "recording through their mobiles openly." He said he did not recognize them, but could do so if he saw them again.

Maliki aides said they did not think any officials were behind the video.

"I think one of the guards, but let us leave everything to the inquiry," Rikabi said.

"I am confident that they were not the guards, for I checked the guards. I kept them under my eye," Faroun said. "They were not people who came off the street." Iraqi officials had been flown in by two U.S. helicopters from the Green Zone an hour before the execution."

[EFerrari]

2. Really? Awesome. Maybe they'll "probe" disorder at their invasion, too.

What a crock.

There's no more lipstick for this pig, WAHO.

[dave_p]

3. It's a bit like...

commissioning Katherine Harris to validate an election return.

Duh! Silly me! Of course it's the way forward...

[Drum]

5. ...or the Pentagon investigating Abu Graib....

[Drum]

4. *yawn*

:eyes:

[LynnTheDem]

6. "deepened the nation's sectarian rift and sparked condemnation around the world"

Well of course. Coz George W. bUsh does exceed all expectations when it comes to fucking up.

[rpannier]

7. What makes this especially amusing (IMO) is...

Their original statement was to the effect, "We will find out smuggled the phones into the room and they will be punished."

It was only later that the government addressed the actions of the people inside.

[MADem]

8. Oh wow, Foxes to Guard Henhouse....that'll work out well....not!

It doesn't matter who did it, or why. The person probably wanted to show his friends how he was a cool 'eyewitness to history' but instead what he did was light a fuse that's gonna create a big bang between the Shi'a and Sunni. It was building anyway, this just accelerates what was going to happen eventually. The other possibility is that someone, likely a Sunni, full well knowing the dynamic that was going to go down, paid a greedy Shi'a to record the event to include sound, though that is less likely.

In any event, the Saudis have to be overjoyed--no need to convince their fellow Sunni folks of the dangers posed by those imperialist Shi'ites .... to say nothing of their inability to behave in civilized fashion.

The ironic thing is that the video makes Saddam look very dignified, and the idiots in ski masks telling him to go to hell, and the assorted cretins in the crowd bellowing out Muqtada's name, look like crazed, out of control lynchers. The end result is that this will further serve to weaken the al-Malaki regime, which is sliding downhill faster than a rat down a greasy drainpipe.

[acmavm]

9. The people in control at the execution are crazed uncontrolled

lynchers. The people in control of the Iraqi government are crazed uncontrolled puppets of the US government trying like crazy to ensure that there is nothing but a Shi'ite theocracy in Iraq. And the people in the US government running this mess are crazed war criminals who are trying to do everything the can to gain control but are too stupid to understand that everything they were warned about before Shock and Awe has come to pass.

They're all friggin' crazy.

[MADem]

10. And there's more, still....that guy who is the Iraqi Chimp to his daddy,

whose name they chanted as Saddam was led to the gallows, is the real idiot (unelected, too--sounds familiar!!!) running the show. Al-Malaki is his puppet, ironically enough. No wonder we put a hit out on him in the early days, and tried to box him into Sadr City....but we didn't do it right, as usual. If you're gonna take someone out, do it--don't fiddle around. All you do is make the person doubly suspicious and determined to take revenge.

This little "hasty lynching" stunt, engineered by Moqtada himself, has served not only to make the US look even worse than we already do (amazing how we had "no control" over Saddam yet he was hanged in the American sector of the Green Zone and we took charge of delivering his corpse to Tikrit, eh!) and is forcing the Guardians in Iran to step up to the plate, something they don't really want to do right now, because the population is fed up as it is, and if they make a wrong move, it could end badly for THEM. Add to the dynamic the Saudis, who are rallying their Sunni neighbors who have long been recipients of their very generous largesse, and you've got a toxic religious soup going on. About the only beneficiaries here are the Israelis, because as long as the Shi'a and Sunni are tearing each others' heads off, they aren't uniting to crap on the Hebrews!!

It's a complete cluster, and it is a GWB production, his and his crew's, alone!