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Iraqi VP 'surprised' by hangings
16/01/2007 08:02 - (SA)
London - Iraq's vice-president on Monday told a British television news programme he was "caught by surprise" by the executions of two former Saddam Hussein loyalists.
"We have not been consulted and I was caught by surprise because the presidency council had made an appeal to postpone this execution, but nevertheless this execution was affected by the government without any pre-consultation with us," Tareq al-Hashemi told Channel 4 News during a visit to Britain.
The Iraqi presidency council member also expressed reservations over the way Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Ahmed Bandar, the former head of the revolutionary court, were executed.
"I don't like, in fact, the way of the trial," he said. "I don't like the way of being executed."
The head of al-Tikriti was ripped from his body during the pre-dawn execution on Monday, but an Iraqi government official insisted that "no violations" had occurred.
Talks with Blair
Hashemi held talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday but said he did not discuss the executions.
He said, however, that he received "an encouraging undertaking" from the prime minister about maintaining British troops in southern Iraq.
The British government has said it hopes to withdraw thousands of its 7 200 troops deployed in the southern city of Basra by the end of this year, so long as an ongoing security operation there is successful.
But Hashemi said the rapid withdrawal of troops already under pressure from terrorist attacks would "create a serious security vacuum ... We don't have at this moment the national and reliable and competent national forces to fill this gap".
"The country might slide into chaos and into civil war and this would damage not only the security of Iraq, but the reputation of America and Britain."
- AFP
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