Washington - US President George W Bush held a video conference call with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday to discuss the controversial execution of Saddam Hussein.
Bush expressed support for al-Maliki's decision to investigate the taunting of Saddam by individuals in the room moments before the ousted dictator was hung and the leaking of a video depicting the execution, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
Bush 'simply said that it was the right thing to do, that there were concerns in this country and around the world about it and that he thought that the prime minister was doing the right thing by taking a look at it,' Snow said.
Saddam was executed early Saturday in Baghdad for ordering the slaughter of 148 Shiites in the Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The execution was carried out days after an Iraqi court upheld his November conviction and death sentence.
Iraqi Sunnis have held angry demonstrations about Saddam's treatment while awaiting death on the gallows.
Bush and al-Maliki also discussed the situation on the ground in Iraq, and Snow said there has been no apparent uptick in violence since the execution.
Bush will reportedly announce a new strategy aimed at reversing the deteriorating security trend in Iraq that has brought the country to the verge of civil war.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
MikeJan 5th, 2007 - 04:24:46
If it was just to execute Saddam and anyone else who aided his efforts in the massacres from 1980s to 2003, then why is it wrong to demand the neck of Donald Rumsfeld, Reagan administration members, members of various chemical companies, all of whom aided and supplied Saddam with the same weapons and knew full well of their uses?
Report this comment