US sought to delay Saddam execution: Iraqi source

Baghdad, Jan 2: The US ambassador in Baghdad urged Iraq's prime minister to delay the execution of Saddam Hussein by two weeks but relented in the face of concerted pressure, a senior Iraqi official told Reuters today.

Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs held angry public mourning rituals following Saturday's hanging and the government is investigating how Shi'ite guards taunted and filmed the former president on the gallows. A no-holds-barred Internet video of the execution has inflamed already fiery sectarian passions.

''The Americans wanted to delay the execution by 15 days because they weren't keen on having him executed straight away,'' said the senior Iraqi official, who was involved in the events leading to Saddam's death and spoke on condition of anonymity.

''But during the day (on Friday) the Prime Minister's office provided all the documents they asked for and the Americans changed their minds when they saw the prime minister was very insistent. Then it was just a case of finalising the details.'' A US embassy spokesman declined immediate comment.

US forces handed over Saddam only at the last moment before he was hanged at dawn, following late-night negotiations between Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and senior US officials, several Iraqi government sources have said.

US officials, whose troops had physical custody of Saddam for three years, have declined comment on their role in the execution. It was rushed through only four days after an appeal court upheld Saddam's conviction for crimes against humanity.

Officials only confirmed the hanging would go ahead just four hours before Saddam went to the gallows shortly after 6 am Two aides convicted with him will not be hanged till later.

The senior Iraqi official said US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told Maliki on Friday he would not hand over the 69- year-old ousted strongman unless Maliki produced key documents, including a signed authorisation from President Jalal Talabani and a death warrant signed by the prime minister.

Two Iraqi cabinet ministers said on Friday two legal issues were holding up any hanging -- first whether a presidential decree was required and second whether the start of the Eid al- Adha Muslim holiday on Saturday should stay the execution, a provision of the Saddam-era Iraqi Penal Code.

DEATH WARRANT

Talabani has been reluctant to sign death warrants for personal reasons but the constitution gives him no power of pardon for war crimes. Many of his fellow Kurds were also keen to see Saddam convicted of genocide against them.

In the end, officials said, presidency advisers provided a letter simply stating that no presidential decree was needed and that senior clerics told Maliki the holiday provided no grace.

Maliki was shown on state television signing the death warrant in red ink in images released by his office along with film of the hangman placing the noose around Saddam's neck.

The rapid execution has boosted Maliki's fragile authority among his fractious Shi'ite supporters but angered many Sunnis.

The United States has been keen to stem a Sunni insurgency that has caused most of the 3,000 American deaths in Iraq and to persuade the dominant Shi'ites not alienate Saddam's minority but to bring them into power to avert an all-out civil war.

That has irritated some leading Shi'ites who accused the Afghan-born Khalilzad of sympathising with fellow Sunni Muslims.

Some US officials have privately expressed frustration with the sway held over Maliki's government by radical Shi'ites like cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia has been blamed for many sectarian death squad attacks on Sunnis.

US officials may also be embarrassed by the revelation of rowdy conduct by Shi'ite guards in the execution chamber where Saddam's own enemies were once frequently put to death.

Grainy video apparently shot on a mobile phone surfaced on the Internet after the official footage, showing observers exchanging taunts with Saddam that including chanting ''Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!''.

''There were a few guards who shouted slogans that were inappropriate and that's now the subject of a government investigation,'' Sami al-Askari, an adviser to Maliki and one of the official observers, told Reuters today.

''They have damaged the image of the Sadrists. That should not have happened. Before we went into the room we had an agreement that no one should bring a mobile phone.'' No Americans were present in the chamber itself, he said.

There was further US involvement afterwards, however, when the government agreed to hand Saddam's body over to his tribe for burial in his native village. Some officials had proposed burying him next to the co-founder of his Baath party, Michel Aflaq, who lies inside the Green Zone government compound. In the end, a US military helicopter flew the body to Tikrit.

REUTERS

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