BAGHDAD — Iraq’s leaders grappled Thursday over the death sentences for three former Saddam Hussein regime heavyweights – including the notorious enforcer known as “Chemical Ali” – amid warnings the hangings could inflame sectarian violence and derail efforts at reconciliation.
But any serious delays in carrying out the executions also risk backlash from the victims of Hussein’s attacks, including Kurds who faced a brutal crackdown in the 1980s that led to the death sentences.
The bind grew more difficult as Sunni leaders pressed to delay the hangings, saying they could incite violence and cripple already fragile bids to improve ties between rival groups.
A court last month upheld the genocide and war-crimes convictions against the three former regime insiders for their roles in the Operation Anfal campaign against autonomy-seeking Kurds in the 1980s that claimed more than 100,000 lives.
Baghdad’s attacks – including the use of poison gas – came to symbolize the cruelty of Hussein’s grip on power and brought the nickname “Chemical Ali” to one of the masterminds, Hussein’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid.
The others sentenced are former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy operations director of the Iraqi armed forces.
The court ordered the hangings to occur within 30 days. They were put off until the end of the holy month of Ramadan, which ended earlier this week. U.S. and Iraqi officials said the men remained in U.S. custody Thursday.
Elsewhere Thursday, U.S. forces detained 15 suspected militants in raids, while an insurgent threw a hand grenade into a school in the south, wounding six boys. A car bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in Hawija, killing three soldiers and injuring 11 civilians.
Iraqi police said the U.S. military fatally shot three men and one woman and injured another woman in their car on a road near Baiji.
McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this report.
Kurds protest Turkey’s vote for action
IRBIL, IRAQ — Thousands of Kurds joined rallies across northern Iraq and marched to U.N. offices Thursday to protest a vote by Turkey’s lawmakers that backed possible cross-border attacks against Kurdish rebel camps.
The Turkish vote Wednesday removed the last legal obstacle to an offensive to root out guerrillas seeking autonomy for the mostly Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey. There were no signs of imminent military strikes, and the United States and the Iraqi government have urged restraint.
“No to military action. Yes to dialogue,” demonstrators shouted as more than 5,000 people headed to U.N. offices in Dahuk, near the Turkish border.
Protesters delivered a document calling for U.N. intervention to stop any further incursions into Iraq by Turkey – which has sent troops in past decades to chase the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK.
Stability in Iraq a long-term project
WASHINGTON — Teaching local officials in Iraq to govern themselves and provide their citizens with basic services will take “years of steady engagement.” It also will rely heavily on the U.S. government’s ability to recruit skilled civilians, investigators told a House panel Thursday.
“Stability operations is not a game for pick up teams,” said Robert Perito, a security expert at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.
The United States has dispatched various provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq and Afghanistan to teach, coach and mentor Iraqis in towns and provinces. Staffed mostly by civilian officials, with the military providing security, the teams show promise but with an effectiveness that is difficult to judge because the needs vary greatly from province to province.
The Associated Press
