Iraq hangs Saddam's deputy on war anniversary

Baghdad - Iraq sent another of Saddam Hussein's former henchmen to the gallows on Tuesday as the nation marked the fourth anniversary of the US-led war still battling a raging insurgency and sectarian conflict.

Former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was executed before dawn for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 Shiites in the 1980s, less than three months after the feared former dictator was himself hanged.

"Ramadan was hanged at 3:05 am (0005 GMT) today," said Bassem Ridha, a senior advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Ramadan, aged almost 70, was the fourth regime official to be executed for his role in the killings of the Shiites from the village of Dujail after an attempt on Saddam's life there in 1982.

"The execution was smooth with no violation," Ridha said, after an international outcry over the manner of the previous hangings of Saddam and his former cohorts.

Footage of Saddam being taunted then executed on December 30 was circulated on the Internet, to the delight of Shiites who suffered under his regime, but seen internationally as a blunder undermining the legitimacy of the process.

The January 15 hanging of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti -- Saddam's half brother and head of the feared secret police -- was particularly gruesome, with his head ripping from the body as he plunged through the metal trap door.

"He was very calm and composed. He asked his family and friends to pray for him and said that he was not afraid of death," defence lawyer Badie Aref said of Ramadan before his execution.

Iraqi leaders say they are determined to punish officials from Saddam's Sunni-led regime, whose supporters are blamed for much of the continuing bloodletting.

On Tuesday, two car bombs in Baghdad killed five people and wounded 27, a day after at least 55 people were killed or found murdered in Iraq.

US President George W. Bush, facing growing opposition to the war at home, said it would take months to secure the violence-plagued capital and warned that a troop pullout now would be "devastating".

In the four years since the launch of the "shock and awe" military campaign on March 20, 2003, Iraq has descended into a sectarian hell that has left tens of thousands of civilians dead.

Bush pleaded for patience on Monday with his unpopular Iraq strategy and Washington's revamped efforts to restore order.

"The Baghdad security plan is still in its early stages and success will take months, not days or weeks," he said.

"It could be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home. That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating."

At 5:35 am four years ago on Tuesday, Tomahawk missiles and precision-guided bombs rained down on Baghdad targets as Saddam vowed it would be "Iraq's last battle against the tyrannous villains."

But on April 9, Saddam's statue in a central Baghdad square was torn down with a rope around the neck, in a premonition of his own hanging.

As the war enters its fifth year, a new poll showed US public opinion had soured further, with just 32 per cent of Americans saying they favoured the war, compared to 72 per cent on the eve of conflict.

And despite claims by the Bush administration that the month-old US troop surge in Baghdad was beginning to work, another poll by Western media organisations told a story of deep Iraqi pessimism.

Only 18 per cent of Iraqis had confidence in foreign troops, just 38 per cent said the situation was better than before the invasion and barely a quarter said they felt safe in their own neighbourhoods.

Protests have been staged across the United States and in several European cities and Japan against a war that was originally based on a premise of eliminating weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

Commanders are now pouring 25,000 reinforcements into Baghdad to quell Sunni-Shiite fighting, the bloodiest element of the conflict and one which even the Pentagon admits amounts to civil war.

In western and northern Iraq, Al-Qaeda militants pursue their insurgency against the US-backed government, while in the south and centre Shiite militias jostle for supremacy and control of oil resources.

The launch of the Baghdad security plan has driven some sectarian death squads from the streets, but car bombs still explode every day, scattering bodies and bloodied debris through crowded markets.

"There has been a steady decline in the Iraq situation since the invasion. Things have gone from bad to worse," said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group think tank.

Estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties over the past four years vary wildly, but the Iraq Body Count website figure of 58,800 is among the more conservative.

Two million Iraqis have fled the country and 1.8 million have been displaced within its borders, according to UN figures.

At least 3,203 American, 133 British and 124 other foreign soldiers have also died since the invasion.

Iraqi officials point to a constitution and the creation of a national unity government by an elected parliament -- with 25 per cent of its members women -- as signs of progress since Saddam's fall.

US commanders, with a wary eye on plummeting public and political support for the war back home, also point to reconstruction and economic development efforts as the great untold story of the war.

Nevertheless, the violence and the corruption that has dogged Iraq's post-invasion reconstruction have delayed much progress in terms of utilities such as electricity supplies.

And a series of US operations has so far failed to fill the security vacuum caused by Washington's decision to disband Saddam-era armed forces which opened the field to Al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed militia.

Agence France Presse

House of Saddam comes tumbling down

Baghdad - Iraq's new judiciary, four years on from the US-led invasion, is dismantling piece by piece the remnants of the ruthless regime enforced by Saddam Hussein over a quarter of a century.

The executed president's inner circle of family members and many of his cronies -- mostly Sunni Arabs from the Tikrit region of northern Iraq -- have been hunted down and are being sent to the gallows one by one.

Former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, like Saddam convicted for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 Shiites in the 1980s, was hanged on Tuesday on the anniversary of the 2003 invasion.

"He was very calm and composed. He asked his family and friends to pray for him and said that he was not afraid of death," defence lawyer Badie Aref told AFP late on Monday.

Even ordinary Iraqis who despised Saddam were surprised by the sudden December 30 hanging of the man who ruled Iraq with an iron fist -- although thousands took to the streets to noisily celebrate his downfall.

Film footage of Saddam being taunted then executed was circulated on the Internet, to the delight of many Shiite Iraqis who suffered under his regime, but was widely seen internationally as a public relations blunder.

The masked executioners and their sectarian chants were seen as undermining the legitimacy of the process -- but this did not unnerve the Iraqi government.

Calling Saddam's execution a "gift to Iraq", Bassem Ridha, advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iraq was determined to hunt other followers of Saddam.

"Definitely this was historic for us. Nobody believed Saddam would be executed. Now that it is done, it has given us a boost, courage despite the mistakes we made," he told AFP.

Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, a half-brother and former chief of the dreaded Mukhabarat intelligence service, followed Saddam to the gallows on January 15. His head was ripped from his body by the rope.

Uday and Qusay, Saddam's two sons who were pillars of the regime, were killed in a fierce gunbattle with US troops backed by air power in the northern city of Mosul in July 2003.

All four have been buried in their home village of Awjah near Tikrit, along with Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, the executed chief judge of Saddam's disbanded Revolutionary Court.

Among the defendants in the Kurdish genocide trial is Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali" and a cousin of Saddam's who served as his enforcer against Iraq's now dominant Shiites and Kurds.

A defiant Majid has been appearing in court with a copy of the Koran holy book in one hand, like Saddam had carried almost up to the gallows, and sits in the same front row seat that had been used by Iraq's fallen leader.

Only fugitive Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, who has a 10-million-dollar bounty on his head, has escaped capture among those closest to Saddam's seat of power, amid frequent unconfirmed reports of his death.

He was Saddam's number two in the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council, having stood by his side ever since the 1968 coup that brought their Baath party to power.

It was in 1979 that Saddam, who would have turned 70 next April 28, took over as president.

Former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, seen as his master's voice who represented the acceptable face of Saddam's Iraq on the international scene, appeared in court earlier this month to heap praise on the executed dictator.

"I had the honour to work with the former regime and with the hero Saddam Hussein," Aziz said from the witness stand in the Anfal genocide trial. "He is the hero behind the unity of Iraq and its sovereignty."

Aziz, who surrendered to US troops in Iraq in April 2003 since when he has been held near Baghdad international airport but without being formally charged, denied there had been any mass killings under Saddam.

The wife, Sajida Khairallah Tulfah Hussein, and eldest daughter, Raghad, among the women and children in Saddam's family who fled abroad before the US occupation, remain among those on a US wanted list.

Iraq's Shiite led government is determined to continue chasing Saddam's remaining aides.

Agence France Presse