U.S. Wants To Focus On Saddam, Not Hanging

(CBS/AP)  The U.S. government worked Wednesday to distance itself from the ugly details of Saddam Hussein's execution and tried to focus on the symbolism of the former dictator's death sentence.

"There seems to be a lot of concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein's life and less about the first 69 (years), in which he murdered hundreds of thousands of people," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "That's why he was executed."

CBS News correspondent Karen Brown reports that the president hasn't even seen the video of Hussein's hanging.

But the Bush administration was sending conflicting signals about the taunting and baiting that accompanied Hussein's execution, with the White House declining to join criticism of the procedure and the State Department and U.S. military raising 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 Saddam's execution and later about "the process and what took place."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday that U.S. officials questioned conducting the execution on a Muslim festival day and as well as some procedures, such as who would be signing certain documents.

He said Iraqis had raised questions about "comments made by people in the room" during the final minutes before the execution and are conducting an investigation into tape made on a cell phone that got out.

"Clearly they didn't approve of that," McCormack said. He added, "Nothing that was done in any way should detract from the fact this was a very solid criminal procedure."

Iraqi state television broadcast an official video of Saturday's execution. The video had no audio and never showed Saddam's actual death. But a leaked cell phone video showed the deposed leader being jeered in his final moments, with witnesses shouting "Go to hell!" before he dropped through the gallows floor and died.

The person believed to have recorded the execution on a cell phone was arrested Wednesday, an adviser to Iraq's prime minister said.

The adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, did not identify the person. But he said it was "an official who supervised the execution" and who is "now under investigation."

"In the past few hours, the government has arrested the person who made the video of Saddam's execution," the adviser said.

The unruly scene was broadcast on Al-Jazeera television and was posted on the Internet, prompting a worldwide outcry and major protests among Iraq's minority Sunnis, who lost their preferential status when Saddam was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003.

Britain's deputy prime minister, John Prescott, called the leaked images "unacceptable." The Vatican labeled the footage a "spectacle" that violated human rights.

In Baghdad, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the U.S. military spokesman, said the execution of Saddam Hussein would have gone differently if U.S. officials — not Iraqis — had orchestrated it.

"Would we have done things differently? Yes we would have. But that's not our decision. That's the government of Iraq's decision," Caldwell said.

He said the United States had nothing to do with the facility where the execution took place.

"We were not involved in any searches of any people, we had nobody present," Caldwell said. "We did not dictate any requirements that had to be followed. This was a government of Iraq decision on how that whole process went down."

In other developments in Iraq:

"Victory" will be the theme of President Bush's expected speech on Iraq war policy, but the White House will not commit to a date when the president will inform the nation of his new strategy. "We're getting closer to the date," Snow said Wednesday. "The president's still working through the policy." Speculation has centered around an announcement of his strategy next week.

Preparations are under way to execute two of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants in the next few days, but the details still must be worked out with the U.S. military, Iraqi media and a government official said.

Four Americans and an Austrian abducted in November in southern Iraq spoke briefly and appeared uninjured in a video believed to have been recorded nearly two weeks ago and delivered Wednesday to The Associated Press.

The number of civilians killed in the violence in Iraq rose sharply over the last three months, accounting for 5,000, or about 40 percent, of the more than 12,000 who died in 2006, the Iraqi government says. Only about half as many Iraqi soldiers died in 2006 as American troops, the government reported Tuesday. But the number of Iraqi security forces killed jumped to 1,539 — nearly double the American death count of 823 for the year — when the deaths of police, who conduct paramilitary operations, are added to the number of slain Iraqi soldiers.

An American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol south of Baghdad, the U.S. military reported Wednesday. The statement said the soldier, whose name was withheld until family could be notified, died on Sunday. The military released no further information on the death.

Al-Maliki says he has no interest in a second term and seems fed up with his job even before the end of his first. Asked whether he would accept a second term, Maliki said in an interview published Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal: "Impossible." He added: "I wish it could be done with even before the end of this term. I would like to serve my people from outside the circle of senior officials, maybe through the parliament, or through working directly with the people."

The military says U.S. troops in western Iraq have detained 23 people suspected of having ties to senior al Qaeda leaders. The raids took place today in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's volatile western Anbar province. During the raids, three of the suspects detonated an improvised explosive device, then ran into a house. American troops shot one of the suspects, wounding him as he tried to flee.

[philosopher6]

Mastermind for all the atrocities in Iraq against the Kurds/Shiities? United States of America

Accomplices: Saddam Hussein and his Baath party/government

Mastermind for Saddam's unjust trial and execution: United States of America

Accomplices: Iraqi officials like Maliki and his ilk

[philosopher6]

Indeed, Hussein got the last laugh, by appearing clam, and dignified in front of an extremely hostile crowd, during his execution! He had the privilege to die as a martyr and hero for his US/Britsh occupied country! What about the dead British and American soldiers? They all die without a legitimate cause, except to serve Bush and Blair's self-serving interests!

Who in their right mind would ever believe that the Americans have nothing to do with the kangaroo court, and eventual hanging of Saddam? The American-backed Iraqi officials are all puppets of the invaders(Anglo-American powers)

Bush and Blair are utilizing the age old strategy of divide and conquer in Iraq, where he pits Sunnis against Shiites, and once these two rivals knock each other out, and is considerably weakened, then the US as well as Britain will intervene in Iraq, and establish a so-called 'democratic' government(democracy is actually the US' instrument for controlling other countries for it's own benefit and interests), thus the US would have attain it's main ulterior motive for invading Iraq--namely Iraq's vast OIL RESERVES!!!!

[rtard1]

I feel the lense in which many members of our country look through to judge world polity is narrow, egocentric, and embraces values of a time passed.

missAmerica4, why do you post? Never has another traded facts for opinion like we read in your posts.

[kstrisha]

Senior Bosnian Serb, Gen. Radislav Krstic, was sent to The Hague to face genocide charges. The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal tried him for directing a campaign of mass murder.

Why wasn't Saddam Hussein sent there as well?

Why is the Bush/Cheney administration diverting from standard protocol?

[mh4cbs1]

Of course Bush and the US media want us to focus on Saddam.

But we should focus a bit on BUSH, who has KILLED MORE CIVILLAINS than Saddam and Osama combined. And that is a FACT.

Bush/Cheney LIED us into Iraq - their Invasion and all resulting DEATH and DESTRUCTION is on Bush & Cheney hands.

Love America? Support the Troops? Then get off your a*s*s and tell your congressperson to IMPEACH and JAIL Bush and Cheney for their WAR CRIMES

[missamerica4]

fascistusa

Ever occur to you that if we were " the Brutal Fascist Tyranny we are" they would come and rip your a$$ out of your chair confiscate your computer for evidence , and haul you off never to be heard of again.

To be honest....some parts of that are appealing.

In a real fascist country at best you would be missing your fingers and tongue...at worst maybe a shredder like SH used.

No Nancy_Naive this was in Feb 1991

And to those that wish to quote that BS website called Wikipedia, please stop...I too once thought that was a great place for information, but it is nothing more than a blog such as this one. I myself or anyone for that matter can change and or add info to ones needs.


Quit already with the Wikipedia. If you going to quote something, use something more truthful

Lets set the record straight, I was in southwest asia during the Gulf War and we had the opportunity to kill Saddam then, I was then part of a unit in the AF and had access to the briefing, debriefing and intel reports prior to and after missions upon our aircrews returns from their missions over Iraq. At one point intel had the location of Saddam, our fighters were scrambled and were sent after him, once over their contact, they were called off by President Bush, because, according to laws back then (according to our Gov't) it was not legal to kill the leader of another country. It was then our fighters were called to abort.

Now keep in mind we did not kill Saddam. It was the Iraqis
We did not yell to him to: "Go to Hell" during his execution. It was the Iraqis
We did not record and put his execution on the web, its was the Iraqis

[grazinggoat]

For the subject of Saddam Hanging , many times we suggested that sparing the life of Saddam in Israeli and/or American Prisons, not because of his kindness, but rather for saving the lives of the many soldiers that our Walking-Liar is preparing to send into the war zones of Occupied Iraq, and the many innocents who are gonna be killed as a result of the inter-ethnic battling that the hanging would forseeably cause...

Walking-LiarBush has another agenda. A biblical- Nostra-Damus-based predictions commanding the return of The Great Israel in the Middle-East. This is frightening, with all what that means. The Armagedon and extermination that will result (confirmed by the sickko visions of Freak Pat Robertson)...

America used to be and should stay secular. With Neo-Cons and God-freaks such as the team that is still running the White House, this country is running straight to the self-destruction and grave events...