Arrests reported in Saddam execution video, U.S. says former leader dignified to the end

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) _ Iraqi authorities reported the arrests Wednesday of two guards and an official who supervised Saddam Hussein's hanging and said the guard force was infiltrated by outsiders who

Wednesday, January 3rd 2007, 8:43 am

By: News On 6

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) _ Iraqi authorities reported the arrests Wednesday of two guards and an official who supervised Saddam Hussein's hanging and said the guard force was infiltrated by outsiders who taunted the former leader and shot the video showing his body dangling at the end of a rope.

National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie and two other top officials variously reported one to three men were being questioned in the investigation into who heckled Saddam as he was minutes from death and took cell phone pictures of his execution.

``The investigation has already had an arrest warrant against one person and two to follow,'' al-Rubaie told CNN. He said the guard force at the execution was infiltrated by an Arab television station or another outsider.

The clandestine footage appeared on Al-Jazeera television and Web sites just hours after Saddam was hanged Saturday. The tumultuous scenes quickly overshadowed an official execution video, which was mute and showed none of the uproar among those on the floor of the chamber below the gallows.

The unauthorized video, which ignited protests by Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs in various Iraqi cities, threatens to turn the ousted dictator into a martyr. Saddam was shown never bowing his head as he faced death, and asking the hecklers if they were acting in a manly way.

A U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, said Saddam was dignified and courteous to his American jailers up to the moment he was handed over to the Iraqis outside the execution chamber. He said no Americans were present for the hanging.

Sami al-Askeri, a Shiite lawmaker who advises Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said two ``Justice Ministry guards were being questioned. The investigation committee is interrogating the men. If it is found that any official was involved, he will face legal measures.''

A second key al-Maliki adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said, ``In the past few hours, the government has arrested the person who videotaped Saddam's execution. He was an official who supervised the execution and now he is under investigation.''

Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, one of 14 official witnesses to the execution, told The Associated Press that he saw two government officials using camera phones at the hanging.

``I saw two of the government officials who were ... present during the execution taking all the video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution,'' he said. ``They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces.''

Caldwell said the tumultuous execution would have gone differently had the Americans been in charge.

As the storm over the handling of the hanging gained strength, Caldwell was among several U.S. officials who suggested displeasure with the conduct of the execution.

``If you are asking me: 'Would we have done things differently?' Yes, we would have. But that's not our decision. That's the government of Iraq's decision,'' the general said.

The Bush administration sent conflicting signals Wednesday about the taunting and baiting that accompanied Saddam's execution, with the White House declining to join criticism of the procedure and the State Department echoing the U.S. military's questions about it.

``The president is focused on the new way forward in Iraq so these issues are best addressed out of Iraq, out of Baghdad,'' deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said. ``Prime Minister Maliki's staff have already expressed their disappointment in the filmings, so I guess we'll leave it at that.''

Stanzel said the U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy in Iraq had expressed concerns about the timing of the execution and about ``the process and what took place.''

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. officials had questioned holding the execution on a Muslim festival day, the opening of Eid al-Adha, and as well as some procedures.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and his diplomatic team ``did engage the government of Iraq on issues relating to procedures involved in the timing of the execution (of Saddam), given the upcoming holy days. While the government of Iraq gave consideration to U.S. concerns, all decisions made regarding the execution were Iraqi decisions based on their own considerations.''

The second-guessing over the conduct of the execution came as Iraqi and Arab media and an Iraqi government official said preparations were under way to hang two of Saddam's co-defendants in the next few days but that the details still have to be worked out with the American military.

A Cabinet official, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the information, said the two men would hang ``at the beginning of next week.''

Caldwell said those executions, like Saddam's, were the responsibility of the Iraqi government. ``It's a sovereign nation. It's their system. They make those decisions.''

Saddam's half brother Barzan Ibrahim, a former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were originally scheduled to hang with Saddam. But their execution was delayed until after Eid al-Adha, which ended Wednesday for Iraq's majority Shiites.

In Washington, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts denied a request by a lawyer for Bandar to block the U.S. military from transferring custody of the condemned man to Iraqi authorities.

U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour appealed to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to prevent the execution of Ibrahim and al-Bandar, saying she was concerned with ``the fairness and impartiality'' of their trials.

Saddam, Ibrahim and al-Bandar were sentenced to death for the 1982 killings of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination plot against Saddam. They were convicted Nov. 5, and an appeals court upheld the verdict on Dec. 26.

Saddam was hanged in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Kazamiyah. During his regime, Saddam had numerous dissidents and opponents executed in the facility, located in a neighborhood that is home to the capital's most important Shiite shrine _ the Imam Kazim.

As he faced his own death on the gallows, Caldwell said, Saddam ''was courteous, as he always had been, to his U.S. military police guards.''

The spokesman said Saddam's demeanor changed ``at the prison facility when the Iraqi guards were assuming control of him, but he was still dignified toward us.

``He spoke very well to our military police, as he always had. And when getting off there at the prison site, he said farewell to his interpreter.

``He thanked the military police squad, the lieutenant, the squad leader, the medical doctor we had present, and the colonel that was on site.''