Sir, Your Comment piece (“Without that shaky video we’d still be in the dark”, Jan 3) is wrong to state that the executioners were especially selected for Saddam’s execution based on the vehemence of their “personal grudge” against him. In fact the executioners are all professional employees of the Ministry of Interior.

It is certainly true that our Prime Minister, Mr al-Maliki, was inundated with e-mails by relatives of Saddam’s countless victims requesting that they personally participate in the execution proceedings, but Mr al-Maliki wisely rejected these overtures. Saddam was not “personally abused and forced to listen to chants of support for the radical Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr” — rather Saddam engaged in a give and take exchange of taunts.

Your comment piece said: “Surrounded by a vengeful, baying mob, Saddam ends up in the room as the person with the most dignity”. Your writer was not present and so you should reserve judgment, given that Munqith al-Faroon, the Chief Prosecutor, is clearly audible on the tape pleading with those interjecting in proceedings to refrain from doing so.

The facts about the events before the execution of Saddam are as follows: during the journey from the green zone to the execution site, I personally instructed all of the witnesses to refrain from any exchanges with the prisoner. Whether or not these orders were disobeyed are matters for the Iraqi Government and the Ministry of Interior to resolve internally, a process that has already come to fruition with the arrest of those responsible for this action.

Additionally, I personally asked the guard escorting Saddam to the gallows to loosen the knot as Saddam cringed when his hands were tied behind his back. These are just two examples of the factual shortcomings in your comment piece.

Finally, the suggestion that this incident underlines the official nature of the sectarian forces driving Iraq is incorrect, given that our nascent democracy, the only one in the authoritarian dictatorial Arab Middle East, is based on regional federalism and not the poisonous mix of Baath secularism combined with Sunni sectarianism at an official level which is exactly what Saddam stood for.

DR MOWAFFAK AL-RUBAIE
Iraq National Security Adviser

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