THE NEW IRAQ?….The Sydney Morning Herald reports today that Iraq’s new prime minister has an old school view of keeping the peace in Baghdad:
Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
….the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister’s personal security team watched in stunned silence.
….The Herald has established the names of three of the prisoners alleged to have been killed….The three names were provided to the Interior Ministry, where senior adviser Sabah Khadum undertook to provide a status report on each. He was asked if they were prisoners, were they alive or had they died in custody.
But the next day he cut short an interview by hanging up the phone, saying only: “I have no information ? I don’t want to comment on that specific matter.”
Both Allawi and the American embassy deny the account. The informants, however, don’t think of themselves as whistleblowers: in fact, they heartily approve of summary executions like these.
The Herald story provides enough detail to make this story credible. I’ll be surprised if we don’t hear more about this.
