Related sifts

Iraq is in chaos, with sectarian violence, any force increase will only increase the exposure of US forces to enemy action.
Iraq - The Hidden Story

Russia has been conducting it's own form of energy supply assurances by holding Chechnya under the banner of fight the war on Terror. Which gives them the carte blanche on action as long as they give the Americans the same at the moment.
Dispatches - The Dirty War in Chechnya

The reason the American Energy companies, Oil lobby groups and their contacts (Cheney) in the US goverment would want to flood the market with cheap Iraqi oil is because they are afraid of recent steps in Venezuela, discussions in OPEC towards putting crude oil off the US dollar due to it's military incursions and foreign policy actions. Which would threaten the US current account which relied on the printing of US dollars for oil trade to stabilize the debt. China has the largest US reserves in the world, the US owes them billions. We have become complicit in supporting a communist regime that still oppresses it's population. Even large corporations such as Google that *ahem DO NO EVIL are involved in the Chinese economy.

The Chinese Communist goverment of course finds this a perfect position, they have the US politically by the pursue because at any moment they can pressure OPEC to stay on the US dollar or not, since they are quickly foreshadowing the US in terms of energy usage. If however OPEC would switch to the Euro if say the US continues on it's war path, the US economy will crash rapidly far worse then the great depression.

If we continue to push for war and lack of diplomatic action our position only gets worse, if albeit OK for the short-term. Leading us to only one path and one solution a war for energy supplies, until the lights go out... and there is no Oil left for fight for, and just when we need international cooperation it will be marred by previous hostile actions.
China has US by the purse.

The threat of energy depletion in the long run is more important issue then global warming, and in many ways totally related. As it is better to tackle it when Oil supplies are high and related R&D would be easier compared to when the lights go out and we're fighting wars of dwindling energy domination.
Robert Newman's - A History of Oil

RE: Related sifts, I mean seriously I understand Lara Logan. But Chris Rock + Senator Boxer?

Yes wasted. Wasted by an administration that doesn't know how to handle a war.

Al Qaeda is still operating.
Iraq is in chaos and in sectarian civil war.
The middle east is far more unstable then before.
Afghanistan is still not stabilized.
Dissolution of the middle class.
Rising national debt.
Hurrican Katerina.
Lowering labor standards.
Shit you can go on and on....

Am sorry but this is America, when the chief fails, he gets replaced. Am sorry if you are too much of a failure as a real republican to see that.

This is a companion piece to my previous post: http://www.videosift.com/video/Scotlands-Secret-Shame-sectarianism-bigotry-football


This 1995 documentary by Paul McGuigan examines the sectarian divisions which exist between Scotland's Protestant and Catholic communities. It explores the lives of two communities living in the same country but divided by family, church, school, and football. Scotland’s sectarian divisions are directly linked to the troubles in Northern Ireland. Two flute bands with strong Irish ties illustrate the seemingly irreconcilable struggle between Republicans and Loyalists.

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X5tOK4AAYM
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbGY-lUcHRo
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF9hMnrzmvU
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L7iSl6Y1ZU

“This is a documentary about hate and bigotry. About sections of two communities, for generations at odds with one another, where the wrong colour of clothing can mark you out for serious injury, or even, on occasion, death. It's also a documentary about football.

Sectarianism and religious bigotry have long been accepted as part of a way of life in Scotland. The divide between Protestant and Catholic, the Orange and the Green, is most visibly reflected in the support for Rangers and Celtic which begins early and spreads from parent to child, from one generation to the next.

Only last year, the First Minister, Jack McConnell, labeled this particular brand of hatred, "Scotland's secret shame."

It manifests itself most dramatically during what is called the greatest club fixture in the football calendar - the "Old Firm" derby between Rangers and Celtic. After a recent match, there was one murder, three attempted murders and 62 arrests during a night of violence.

On days like this, emergency callouts for Accident and Emergency teams will increase by 66%, the vast majority made up of violent or drunken assaults between opposing fans.

Legislation has now been introduced which outlaws sectarian behaviour. Panorama investigates the effectiveness of the legal challenge and for the first time puts the two major Glasgow football clubs under the spotlight as they attempt to rid sectarianism from their supporters. It also explores the violence and mayhem that undermines and erodes the new image that Glasgow and Scotland want to present to the outside world.

Contributors include the First Minister, Jack McConnell, Rangers and Celtic Football clubs, and interviews with those who have carried out acts of sectarian violence.”

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYN_BLBvZHg
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc8ifyQlWrw
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h88-Aa9ivPA
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyP_ox_IqsE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Firm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_in_Glasgow

The Right is having trouble attacking this man clearly. They go back years to find a clip to try to pass him off as a flip flopper?

Please.

Let's see now... Since 2003 Bush revised the way he refers to the war...

March 2003 - Operation Iraqi Freedom:
"This will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory."
TROOPS : 90,000

May 2003 - Under Mission Accomplished banner:
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
TROOPS : 146,300

April 2004 - On Staying Course:
"These killers [terrorists] don't have values. They want to shake our will... But we will stay the course."
TROOPS : 138,100

November 2005 - Strategy for Victory in Iraq:
"Every man and woman who volunteers to defend our nation deserves an unwavering commitment to the mission - and a clear strategy for victory."
TROOPS : 154,000

July 2006 - Operation Together Forward:
"Obviously, the violence in Baghdad is still terrible, and therefore there needs to be more troops."
TROOPS : 131,000

January 2007 - New Way Forward Iraq Strategy:
"This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis... Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."
TROOPS : 132,000


The military itself says Bush's surge plan is a foolish political compromise, that introduces too few troops to secure the situation but just enough to get more Americans killed. Bush doesn't listen to his own generals, dismissing the advice of the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, who wanted the increase to be just a few thousand men.

In response to your comment about there being no clear plan, the plan is for the additional troops to be a police force. This is right out of the counter-insurgency playbook. Look at successful counter-insurgencies throughout history and they all applied overwhelming force to police the populace, provide security, and prevent insurgent forces from operating freely. This may not be the dashing, clear mission objective such as "take Hill 317" or "defend this bridge until relieved" but again successful counter insurgencies have all used military forces in a police role.

To be honest I do not think 21,000 additional troops will be sufficient to establish the baseline of security necessary for an effective counter-insurgency. It is worth a try however because there is still a possibility it might slow down the escalation of sectarian violence, and if we cannot slow down said violence then nothing else we do will really matter. My key point here is that the additional troops for security purposes is straight out of the counter-insurgency playbook. Watch the movie Battle for Algiers sometime. Granted France eventually lost Algeria but they conducted a successful counter-insurgency against the FLN in Algiers several years prior to the mass uprisings that would eventually lead to independence. If you watch the movie, you will see that the French had a military presense on virtually every street corner. Attacks still got through, but the ability of the FLN to operate freely throughout the city was severely, severely limited.

"I agree that a force addition looks good on paper, but it looked good on paper back in Vietnam, the additional force elements there were just not enough to back out of what turned into a civil war. The same situation is being repeated here."

Except that Vietnam was a conflict between two sovereign nation-states. Granted both states were ethnically linked, but it was an external conflict between two states rather than an internal conflict in one state. In the event that the Soviet Union ever invaded Western Europe, US Special Forces teams would have been deployed throughout eastern Europe to make contact with dissident forces and train, equip and lead them on guerilla operations in the Soviet rear. In Vietnam, the North was doing the exact same thing to the South in preparation of a conventional invasion. The reason why we failed in Vietnam was because we treated the conflict as if the South had a domestic insurgency, rather a foreign infiltration by the North. Granted Iran is playing a part in supporting the Shiite militias, but such support pales in comparison to the guerilla combat operations that the PAVN was conducting in South Vietnam.

"If the 21,000 force commitment fails. What then?"

Then it fails and we try plan B, which I would hope would be a partitioning of the country.

"The US will have no maneuvering "

So are you saying we should hold said 21,000 troops in reserve for deployment in some later, alternative strategy? If not, then how does deploying the troops now limit our ability to maneuver? Look, the NIE makes it pretty clear that withdrawal in the next 12 to 18 months is not an option. In the face of that we either commit our available resources in one last push to make this thing work, or we can immediately turn to other options such as partitioning the country. Either way we will be in this for the long haul. With that in mind, giving the surge a try for 5-6 to months is worth a shot. If the security situation improves then we follow up on such success, if we see no improvement then we pursue the other less favorable options (i.e. partition). In the event it doesn't work, having additional forces on the ground gives us additional flexibility to pursue an alternate strategy. If said troops are not needed for an alternate strategy they can be redeployed, if they are then they are already in country availible for use.

"there will be another crushing morale plummet as US forces will pull out like they did in South Vietnam."

In the likely event that Iraq completely falls apart then such a moral plummet will occur regardless of whether or not the troop surge occurred.

Look, I am very pessimistic about our chances for success in Iraq. I think success would still be entirely possible were there still support for the War. I think the troop surge could possibly work, but probably won't. And I think if the surge fails we should look into a soft partition of the country, which is far less than ideal but will serve our interest of regional stability for better than a failed Iraqi state. In all likelihood I think the failed state is the outcome we're going to get however. The last three years in Iraq have basically been wasted, and I blame the bush administration entirely for that. If we are to succeed we basically need to start from square one. There simply isn't patience among the American people any more for such a long term commitment to Iraq however. I suspect that if the troop surge does not succeed, which is highly probably, patience for the war will be entirely over and a rapid withdrawal will follow leading to the collapse of the Iraqi government and a destabilization of the region. With that in mind what I think we should do is entirely a moot point because there will never be an opportunity to do any of it.

"There is no clear plan for the deployment of the extra 21,000 troops. Most will be stationed in Iraq and the Anbar province. There is no additional task given to these other then blanket security operations which would only mean exposing the troops to more hostile fire."

Yes, it will expose more soldiers to hostile fire. The fact remains however that casualties throughout the Iraq War have been remarkably light given the nature and length of operations we have been conducting there. Over 3,000 deaths and 20,000+ wounded looks horrible on paper, and is certainly tragic, but the reality is that the casualty rates are not yet high enough to have any significant impact on combat effectiveness. If a given Rifle company loses 7 men and has about 25 wounded over the course of a one year tour (these were the casualties sustained in a cavalry company commanded by a friend of mine), there will be very little impact on the overall combat effectiveness of said company. Yes, casualties are bad but so long as they do not significantly impact combat effectiveness they have no tactical or operational impact upon the conduct of a war. They do however further sour public opinion, but at this stage of the game I think the people who will only support a war below a certain casualty threshold have long since stopped supporting the Iraq war.

"At the same time you are dropping an influx of troops into a country where 70% of the population looks upon your forces as occupiers. All that would do is unify the resistance and insurgency against coalition forces even more."

Certainly true, but at the same time the Iraqis are absolutely desperate for some kind of security and increasingly do not care who provides it:

"Now, it's one thing to say that polls show -- American commanders say it -- that most Iraqis, 80 percent of them, do not like being occupied, true. But if you ask any individual Iraqi in any of these areas whether he would rather see more of American troops, they almost invariably say, "Yes," unless they're members of the Mahdi army or one of the militias, because that's what brings calm to the area." -John Burns, New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june07/baghdad_01-10.html

"It is best I do not use her name. Any Iraqi known to have contact with foreigners is at risk. And security is the only issue that matters now, she says. "Everything depends on it. I am not worrying about democracy, about the economy. The security comes first, and we've lost that." ' -Andrew North, BBC Correspondent, Baghdad

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6192815.stm

The point is that it really does not seem like the Iraqis really care who provides security, at this point, so long as they don't need to be constantly afraid of getting kidnapped or killed by a carbomb. We can talk about cultural differences and national pride etc. but I know that if I had been living in such conditions for several years, I'd be willing to be under "foreign occupation" if it meant I could stop being constantly afraid for myself and my family. Based upon what the above two, and other correspondents are reporting I'd say that the average Iraqi is in a similar state of mind.

"Either way, what will that force increase do without a clear working plan? Are US forces going to be used to actively suppress the Sunni or Shi'a militias?"

That's my understanding. Due to a lack of US and Iraqi National troops a security vacuum was created in Iraq. The Sunni insurgency was able to take such firm root because of said vacuum. The Sunni insurgency eventually began targeting Shiites, which prompted the Shiites to form militias for their own protection. Reprisal killings sparked reprisal killings and the result is a Sunni-Shi'a civil war on top of the original Sunni insurgency. The idea behind the surge is to provide sufficient US forces to establish joint security sites in the key neighborhoods of Baghdad that will take the place of the various militias. If you can get a (relatively) impartial third party providing security in lieu of sectarian militias, you have a possibility of slowing down or even stopping the escalation of reprisal killings.

I don't see how any surge could work when Iraqi polls show that more people now view US forces as occupiers. You are simply exposing your troops to more enemy fire. There is no concrete plan about what these extra troops will really do. Are you going to simply impose curfews and fight it out with the insurgence? Will they force a negotiation to end sectarian violence between Shi'a and Sunni?

There is simply no plan for what these extra forces will do.

Ohh what does this sound like that happened during the cold war? Only substitute terrorism for Red Menace.

QM - "Displays of weakness are unacceptable. This enemy respects only brute force. " - what kind of bullshit philosophy is that to live by?

Firstly, peaceful negotiations are not a sign of weakness. Working with the UN is not a sign of weakness. Talking to Iran and Syria is not a sign of weakness. Talking to Muqtada al-Sadr is not a sign of weakness. America should never have gone into Iraq the way they did - illegally, unprepared, ill-informed, and without a mandate from the international community. Britain shouldn't have followed - blame Blair, he is a complete idiot and the most hated PM in British history. Unfortunately, British support meant that Bush and his neocon army began to believe their own lies.

Secondly, how the hell did we end up in a world where people think that the only way to achieve anything is by threatening or killing people? No one respects brute force. It may temporarily coerce people into submission. But it fosters hate, resentment, and revolt in the long-term - just look at Palestine. Ghandi and Mandela achieved an awful lot without heavy artillery and torture!!!

Thirdly, you are assuming that you can easily define who the enemy is - you can't!!! if America had done some research before they invaded, had consulted anyone who knew anything about Iraq, they would have realised just how complex the political, religious and ethnic division in iraq are. Before the illegal invasion of Iraq, there had been increasing hostility between Shi'a and Sunni - due in a large part to the extreme form of unitarian Hanbali Islam (known in the West as Wahhabism or Salafism) spread by Saudi with the help of petrodollars. Wahhabis are particularly vocal in their condemnation of the Shi'a - branding all Shi'a as heretics. Couple this with the appalling treatment of the Shi'a under Saddam and the regional power aspirations of Iran and Syria and you have a potent recipe for disaster. The last thing anyone should have done was ignite a sectarian conflict - which is now effectively a civil war - in the most religiously divided country in the Middle East.

Furthermore, the unquestioning support of the US and Britain for Israel's illegal invasion of Lebanon, has inadvertently increased the power of Hezbollah - a Shi'a party. Hezbollah were widely heralded as the defenders of Lebanon against the unjustified brute force used by Israel to collectively punish the Lebanese people. The inability of the Lebanese government to respond to Israeli aggression - which was directed not just at Hezbollah but at all the peoples of Lebanon - has given Hezbollah a chance to seize power. The Sunni, Christian and Druze of Lebanon do not want to be ruled by a conservative Shi'a party so there is an increasing likelihood of a second sectarian civil war in Lebanon.

So where has brute force got us?

Thousands dead in Palestine and Israel. Thousands dead in Lebanon. Thousands dead in Iraq.

As the prospect of a wider sectarian conflict consuming the whole of the Middle East becomes ever more likely, I think it's time that we stopped advocating brute force, stopped saying you're either with us or against us, and started advocating dialogue.

SENATOR HAGEL: ... but I would even begin with this evaluation; that we owe the military and their families a policy, a policy worthy of their sacrifices, and I don't believe, Dr. Rice, we have that policy today.

I think what the president said last night -- and I listened carefully and read through it again this morning -- is all about a broadened American involvement, escalation in Iraq and the Middle East. I do not agree with that escalation, and I would further note that when you say, as you have here this morning, that we need to address and help the Iraqis and pay attention to the fact that Iraqis are being killed, Madame Secretary, Iraqis are killing Iraqis. We are in a civil war. This is sectarian violence out of control -- Iraqi on Iraqi. Worse, it is inter-sectarian violence -- Shi'a killing Shi'a.

To ask our young men and women to sacrifice their lives, to be put in the middle of a civil war is wrong.

It's, first of all, in my opinion, morally wrong. It's tactically, strategically, militarily wrong. We will not win a war of attrition in the Middle East.

And I further note that you talk about skepticism and pessimism of the American people and some in Congress. That is not some kind of a subjective analysis, that is because, Madame Secretary, we've been there almost four years, and there's a reason for that skepticism and pessimism, and that is based on the facts on the ground, the reality of the dynamics.

And so I have been one, as you know, who have believed that the appropriate focus is not to escalate, but to try to find a broader incorporation of a framework. And it will have to be, certainly, regional, as many of us have been saying for a long time. That should not be new to anyone. But it has to be more than regional, it is going to have to be internally sponsored, and that's going to include Iran and Syria.

When you were engaging Chairman Biden on this issue, on the specific question -- will our troops go into Iran or Syria in pursuit, based on what the president said last night -- you cannot sit here today -- not because you're dishonest or you don't understand, but no one in our government can sit here today and tell Americans that we won't engage the Iranians and the Syrians cross-border.

Some of us remember 1970, Madame Secretary, and that was Cambodia, and when our government lied to the American people and said we didn't cross the border going into Cambodia. In fact we did. I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee.

So, Madame Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous. Matter of fact, I have to say, Madame Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out. I will resist it.

Charles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel (born October 4, 1946) is the senior United States Senator from Nebraska. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 1996 and was reelected in 2002. He is a Vietnam War veteran.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hagel

But Theo isn't that then treating Iraq as a short term problem? What do the Democrats actually suggest as a concrete pull out plan from Iraq post-surge? Without letting the entire thing collapse like a house of cards?

Yes the war is wrong and we need to get out but who is actually putting forward a concrete plan to do so? No one as of yet. I don't know if either party has a feasible plan yet. No matter what situationally Iraq will be still a US problem that will have to be dealt with either diplomatically within the middle east as a whole and economically to aid reconstruction after the hate dissipates and Iraqis start running Iraq totally and not possess political or sectarian affiliations stemming from the fact that people just see the US forces as occupiers and aggressors now.

It's easy to get mad and inflamed by the actions of the west when there is active political and military incursion in the middle east and the generally feeling that muslims are being prosecuted for their beliefs. Doesn't help when Bush used Biblical terms to label the conflicts.

We in the west enjoy the fact that our houses don't explode or that tanks don't roll through our neighbourhoods.

Turning a question of foreign policy decisions by the US and the UK into some kind of debate about the differing levels of acceptance of free speech is a over simplification of the real situation. There was large support for the US forces in Iraq before the ill-fated Baathist purge and dissolution backfired into a full scale sectarian violence with radicalized terrorist elements.

Active military aggression would only radicalize the region more under the corrupt fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran which is used as a political tool to gain wider support through unity of common held beliefs, but skewing them with radicalized holy war against the West. Exactly how that is a question of free speech or not I don't know really.

The muslim person they picked is a poor representation of the community I know. For some real islamic positions on terrorism and such see the American Muslim Association website @ http://www.al-amana.org/, the pamphlets section.

But the question has to be asked, is the administration acting rationally with words like Islamofacists are used in the same way the word Communist was in the Cold War? Or is it a perpetual war against a monolithic enemy on the scale of the Soviet Union which was sold by the CIA as a greater threat then it turned out to be, rotting from the inside? Only now there is no collapse to ever be seen. The terrorist forces can forever be created, reappear, reform.

I meant an additional 100-150 thousand soldiers on top of what is already there for a total of 250-300 thousand. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

As for your second point, the same argumentation may have been used erroneously during the Vietnam War but of course we were dealing with very different circumstances. That nothing much bad happened as a result of South Vietnam falling to communism does not mean that nothing particularly bad will happen if Iraq becomes a failed state. Again, at the very, very least we will have a enormous humanitarian crisis, disruption of the global energy market, a PR victory for organizations like Al-Qaeda and a huge loss of face (which is vital for the conduct of international affairs). An escalation of the sectarian strife to all out genocide is highly likely. A regional war that could destabilize the regimes of our allies is also a serious possibility. The list goes on. I understand your point that in the past people have feared horrible consequences that never came to pass, but that does not mean however we can assume that our fears won't come to pass with regards to Iraq. In fact I would characterize that assumption as highly wishful thinking.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like nothing more than to be able to end involvement with this debacle. The invasion was clearly the biggest strategic blunder in American foreign policy in the last 100 years, if not the in our entire history. I'd even go so far as to say this was a completely pointless exercise in hubris. That said, we need to be thinking about how to minimize our losses and I am not convinced that withdrawal while there is still an opportunity to create a stable (although probably not free) state is the best way to cut our losses. On the contrary I think the costs of the consequences of such a withdrawal will far out weigh the price that would be paid now to finally provide a baseline of security in Baghdad.

Why isn't what we're doing now working? The strategy applied up until now, the light footprint approach, clearly has not worked. The idea behind such an approach was that we limit our presence so as to minimize the appearance of an occupation, and therefore limit violence against the occupying forces. Simultaneously we train up Iraqi security forces and build up an Iraqi government so that they can take over control of the country and we can stand down. Meanwhile reconstruction money is funneled in to rebuild the economy. The problem with that strategy is that we were never able to establish a baseline of security to allow political and economic developments to occur. With out a relatively stable political authority, newly trained security forces will not serve the Iraqi state but will instead serve their sectarian interests, which is exactly what has happened. Without economic development, angry young men have no jobs and the only opportunity they have is to fight. As violence escalates, retaliations occur and a feedback loop of increasing violence and political disintegration occurs. If we allow this feedback loop to operate much longer the situation will spin completely out of anyone's control and even worse disaster will be the only result.

Are their any potential alternatives? The only sane policy that I can see is an escalation of American forces on the order of 100,000-150,000. If we do so we can finally have enough soldiers on the ground to establish security in the key neighborhoods of Baghdad and other important cities. If their is a rifle squad patrolling the same few block of the same neighborhood everyday, you can bet that insurgent and sectarian activity in those few blocks will decrease markedly. It is only once we establish that level of security that any sort of political or economic development can occur, and only political and economic development will stabilize Iraq and the region. To arrest the feedback loop of violence and political disintegration, we need to establish security, and we can only establish security with a major increase in the troop level in country. In other words, we need a classic counterinsurgency policy.

Such a drastic raise in troop levels sparks the question as to how we will sustain such levels for the 18 months to 2 years that would be necessary. Obviously we will need to expand the size of the military and to do so we will need to raise taxes and cut social spending. In other words we need to start acting as if we are at war and make the necessary sacrifices. Sacrifices suck, but not only are the consequences of Iraq disintegrating worth stopping, it is also the honorable thing to do because we are after all the cause for this current mess.

At the beginning of this post I mentioned that this is probably the only sane policy. I say probably because it is based off the assumption that there are still enough people in Iraq who want a stable Iraqi state. If however the man on the street can only think of killing the people that killed his brother, then we have probably crossed the point of no return and it's best to just cut our losses, get out and then hope for the best with the shitstorm that will result. If my assumption is correct then I think we can still make this work, if in fact the Iraqi people have reached a point where revenge is their only motivation than we are too late.

Well said, oilcan.

And see below...perhaps both videos are historically newsworthy?

__________________________________________________

Iraq govt to probe filming of Saddam hanging
Mon Jan 1, 2007 3:27 PM ET

By Mussab Al-Khairalla and Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government launched an inquiry on Monday into how guards filmed and taunted Saddam Hussein on the gallows, turning his execution into a televised spectacle that has inflamed sectarian anger.

A senior Iraqi official told Reuters the U.S. ambassador tried to persuade Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki not to rush into hanging the former president just four days after his appeal was turned down, urging the government two wait another two weeks.

News of the ousted strongman's death on Saturday and of his treatment by officials of the Shi'ite-led government was blamed by one witness for sparking a prison riot among mainly Sunni Arab inmates at a jail near the northern city of Mosul.

An adviser to Maliki, Sami al-Askari, told Reuters: "There were a few guards who shouted slogans that were inappropriate and that's now the subject of a government investigation."

The government released video showing the hangman chatting to a composed Saddam as he placed the noose round his neck.

But mobile phone footage on the Web showed guards shouting "Go to hell!", chanting the name of a Shi'ite militia leader and exchanging insults with Saddam before he fell through the trap in mid-prayer and his body swung, broken-necked, on the rope. More from Reuters.