AN Iraqi who is one of the favourites to become the country’s next prime minister has said that Saddam Hussein should have been summarily executed and warned that his continuing trial is having a negative effect on the country.

In an interview last week, Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi, 63, a moderate Shi’ite, said that the former Iraqi leader’s many crimes, from atrocities against his own people to the war with Iran, were evidence that “he deserves to be put to death without trial”.

“This is no ordinary trial; it’s a trial that will judge Saddam and the members of his regime’s vicious crimes against humanity, even though he is being given a chance that he denied others during his rule,” Mahdi said.

A member of the mostly Shi’ite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), Mahdi said that he had been “ecstatic” when told by the prosecution that the first of a series of trials against Saddam could be completed in 10 sessions. “The continuing process is unnecessary and will only hurt the Iraqi people,” he said.

Sciri is part of the United Iraqi Alliance, expected to be the most powerful force in parliament when the results of the December 15 poll is announced, probably later this month.

Mahdi, an economist by training who went into exile in France after the 1968 coup that brought Saddam’s Ba’ath party to power, said 2007 would be “crucial” in deciding whether coalition forces should remain. He praised the work of British forces in particular, saying they had done a “tremendous job” in the south.

He said it was “not appropriate” to set a precise date for troop withdrawal. The picture would be clearer once the new government had determined how best to fill the security gap that would be left by departing forces.

Mahdi, whose brother Ghalib Abdul Mahdi, a cabinet adviser, was shot dead in October, said he did not believe the large coalition presence had made the insurgency worse. But he claimed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, would not have gained such a foothold if Iraqis had been in control of their own security.

“The biggest evidence for this is the stable security situation in Kurdistan, which is protected by the local authorities there,” he said.

Last week was one of the bloodiest of recent months in Iraq. At least 136 people — including 11 American soldiers — were killed on Thursday.

Mahdi admitted that it had been difficult for Iraq to build up its security forces and weed out people loyal to the former regime. But they were now 70% better than they were a year ago, he said.

“At the beginning, the Iraqi troops would take one step ahead and two steps back, meaning that they would immediately retreat from battle,” he said. “Now a substantial improvement has taken place in that they would fight in combat alongside the coalition troops as back-up troops and now they have paved their skills to take the lead in combat.”

He dismissed claims that the Iraqi authorities were involved in running secret prisons and suggestions that the interior ministry had been penetrated by Iranian intelligence. Such claims have been voiced by Iyad Allawi, a former prime minister who was had been seen by the West as a future leader but whose party did badly in the elections.

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