Who was given authority to release Saddam to the Iraqis?

[kentuck]

Was it a general officer or was it Private England? We are told that Mr Bush went to bed early. He was supposedly asleep when the execution took place. But, in the report below, none of the Iraqi officials were able to explain why Maliki "was unwilling to allow the execution to wait". Was Maliki on the private phone to Bush in Crawford, Texas earlier in the day, before Bush went to bed? Did Bush give him any advice? Did he tell him to do whatever he wanted to do? Or did he talk with him at all? If all the American officials were "scrambling" before the execution to "make sure everything was legal", they must have been convinced it was legal or they would not have released Saddam? Who gave the final order to release Saddam to the mob? There are a lot of questions about this decision and the NYTimes article raises more questions than answers, in my opinion...
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

<snip>
But a narrative assembled from accounts by various American officials, and by Iraqis present at some of the crucial meetings between the two sides, shows that it was the Americans who counseled caution in the way the Iraqis carried out the hanging. The issues uppermost in the Americans’ minds, these officials said, were a provision in Iraq’s new Constitution that required the three-man presidency council to approve hangings, and a stipulation in a longstanding Iraqi law that no executions can be carried out during the Id al-Adha holiday, which began for Iraqi Sunnis on Saturday and Shiites on Sunday.

<snip>
Told that Mr. Maliki wanted to carry out the death sentence on Mr. Hussein almost immediately, and not wait further into the 30-day deadline set by the appeals court, American officers at the Thursday meeting said that they would accept any decision but needed assurance that due process had been followed before relinquishing physical custody of Mr. Hussein.

<snip>
The Maliki government spent much of Friday working on legal mechanisms to meet the American demands. From Mr. Talabani, they obtained a letter saying that while he would not sign a decree approving the hanging, he had no objections. The Iraqi official said Mr. Talabani first asked the tribunal’s judges for an opinion on whether the constitutional requirement for presidential approval applied to a death sentence handed down by the tribunal, a special court operating outside Iraq’s main judicial system. The judges said the requirement was void.

<snip>
None of the Iraqi officials were able to explain why Mr. Maliki had been unwilling to allow the execution to wait. Nor would any explain why those who conducted it had allowed it to deteriorate into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs.

....more

[bklyncowgirl]

1. I've been wondering that myself, Kentuck. Who gave the orders?

It seems to me that all of the American officials mentioned in this article were mid level diplomatic and military types who, correctly, saw that this could be a public relations disaster--not to mention a violation of international law and basic decency.

I can't imagine that these officials decided to hand the former president of Iraq over to Maliki without close consultation with higher ups in Washington and very clear orders from above--I'm a mid level bureaucratic type myself and I'd make sure my ass was covered every which way 'till Friday on something like this. (Actually, I'd like to think that I'd have the moral courage to resist these sort of orders even if it meant my job but that's beside the point)

Did these officials voice their opposition and if so, who overrode their objections and ordered them to turn Saddam Hussein over to the Iraqis?

Was it Bush himself? Was it Cheney? Did the rush to lynch Hussein originate with Maliki as a gift to the radical Shiites or did it start with the Bush administration for reasons that are not yet and probably never will be clear.

Inquiring minds want to know

[Old and In the Way]

2. Why not wait for the results of the real war crimes trial?

History will record that he was convicted for the deaths of 148 people. Seems like a pretty reason to justify 3000 American deaths, 100-500,000 Iraqi deaths and $500BB from our Treasury. So why wouldn't this administration demand that the trial for real warcrimes be completed and have that form the basis of his execution?

I think we know the real answer...that trial could never be allowed to proceed because there would be some real uncomfortable truths laid bare. And could this administration gamble with Hussein's testimony given a Democratic Congress is days away from being sworn in and investigations into the entire war soon to follow?