Iraqis say Saddam could exploit Abu Ghraib images
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-17 11:14

Saddam Hussein could seize on new images of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison to attack his US-sponsored trial, which is intended to show that the days of such excesses are over, Iraqis said on Thursday.

An Australian television station broadcast previously unpublished images on Wednesday of apparent abuse of prisoners at the US-run prison.

A statement issued by Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jafaari's office on Wednesday said his government "strongly condemns the acts of torture revealed by the pictures broadcast recently of Iraqi prisoners".

Iraq's Human Rights Minister Zuhair al-Chalabi called on US-led forces to hand over all Iraqi inmates at U.S.-run prisons to the Iraqi government.

Iraqis said Saddam was likely use the images to condemn the court as an illegal creation of occupying US forces.

Reaction in the heartland of his once-dominant Arab Sunni minority was predictable.

He is seen there as a hero overthrown in a plot to impose US domination in the name of human rights.

"His rule is now being tried by American agents with Iraqi faces while they try to keep what is taking place at Abu Ghraib secret," said Abdul Sadoun, an engineer in the former rebel stronghold of Falluja.

"This is evidence that Saddam was ruling the country with justice. We did not see any Iraqi being tortured in his time."

Australia's Special Broadcasting Service's "Dateline" programme said the images were recorded at the same time as the now-infamous pictures of US soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees which sparked international outrage in 2004.

Some of the pictures suggest further abuse such as killing, torture and sexual humiliation, "Dateline" said.

Earlier this week, a British newspaper released a video that appears to show British soldiers beating Iraqi teenagers in Basra in 2004.

DEFIANT SADDAM

Anger has been spreading in Arab and Muslim countries since cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad appeared in a Danish newspaper and were republished elsewhere.

Theses are the kind of issues that the defiant Saddam, a former champion of Arab nationalism, is capable of exploiting in court.

The Abu Ghraib images pushed some Iraqis to compare their current plight with Saddam's rule, which they say was a brutal dictatorship but preferable in some ways.

"Now some people will claim that life was better under Saddam. Both performed crimes against humanity but at least we had security back then," said Abu Anmar, 35, a Sunni petrol station owner, referring to the daily carnage in Iraq.

Even Shi'ites, who have suffered the most from a Sunni insurgency led by Saddam loyalists, acknowledged that the former leader stood to gain from the latest Abu Ghraib scandal.

Some complained that the abuses served as further proof that the Iraqi government was still powerless to speak up against the Americans nearly three years after Saddam's fall.

"These pictures are an insult to us and our government. Why are the Americans and the British still controlling our prisons?" asked Mohammad Jassim, 17, a Shi'ite student.
"Don't we have our own army now? This will only give Saddam the terrorist more sympathisers."

Abdullah Abdel Razzaq, a former brigadier in Saddam's army, said: "As evidence that we who refuse the occupation are right and those who support it are wrong look at the abuses that Iraqis face in American and British prisons.