Abuse worse than under Saddam, says Iraqi leader

· Allawi in damning indictment of new regime
· Bush prepares way for US troop pull-out

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday November 27, 2005
_The Observer_ (http://www.observer.co.uk/)

Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam
Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to
the country's first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam's regime.

'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' Ayad
Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People
are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons
that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.'

In a damning and wide-ranging indictment of Iraq's escalating human
rights catastrophe, Allawi accused fellow Shias in the government of
being responsible for death squads and secret torture centres. The
brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of
Saddam's secret police, he said.

Allawi, who was a strong ally of the US-led coalition forces and was
prime minister until this April, made his remarks as further hints
emerged yesterday that President George Bush is planning to withdraw
up to 40,000 US troops from the country next year, when Iraqi forces
will be capable of taking over.

Allawi's bleak assessment is likely to undermine any attempt to
suggest that conditions in Iraq are markedly improving.

'We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are
being interrogated,' he added. 'A lot of Iraqis are being tortured or
killed in the course of interrogations. We are even witnessing Sharia
courts based on Islamic law that are trying people and executing them.'
He said that immediate action was needed to dismantle militias that
continue to operate with impunity. If nothing is done, 'the disease
infecting [the Ministry of the Interior] will become contagious and
spread to all ministries and structures of Iraq's government', he said.

In a chilling warning to the West over the danger of leaving behind
a disintegrating Iraq, Allawi added: 'Iraq is the centrepiece of this
region. If things go wrong, neither Europe nor the US will be safe.'
His uncompromising comments came on the eve of Saddam's latest court
appearance on charges of crimes against humanity. They seem certain
to fuel the growing sense of crisis over Iraq, both in the country
itself and in the US, where political support for the occupation
continues to plummet.

Allawi was selected to serve as prime minister of the first interim
government, before last January's first national elections. Admired in
both Downing Street and the White House as a non-sectarian politician
committed to strong centralised government representing all Iraqis,
Allawi's supporters struggled in last January's elections, where
they were eclipsed by Shia religious parties, some of which have been
implicated in the violence.

Recently, however, his reputation has enjoyed a resurgence as he has
tried to build alliances with Sunni political groups ahead of next
month's national elections.

His comments come as a blow to those hoping that Iraq was moving
towards normalisation under the new government. In a speech on
Wednesday, Bush is expected to hail the improved readiness of Iraqi
troops, which he has identified as the key condition for withdrawing
US forces.

But the proximity of the latest round of elections appears to have
only intensified political murders and intimidations, including
members of Allawi's own list, who have been killed and attacked by
political rivals.

Despite denials of wrongdoing by the Ministry of the Interior,
which has been implicated in much of the abuse, a series of damaging
disclosures, including the discovery of a secret detention centre
run by the ministry, has heaped embarrassment on the Iraqi government
and its foreign supporters.

The intervention by one of Iraq's most prominent political figures
promises to turn human rights abuses into a key election issue.

Allawi's scathing assessment of the collapse of human rights in Iraq
under the country's first democratically elected government came amid
an angry denunciation of the involvement of the Iraq government's
institutions in widespread disappearances, torture and assassinations.

He added that he now had so little faith in the rule of law that
he had instructed his own bodyguards to fire on any police car that
attempted to approach his headquarters without prior notice, following
the implication of police units in many of the abuses.

Allawi saved his strongest condemnation for the Ministry of the
Interior, whose personnel have been accused of being behind much of the
abuse: 'The Ministry of the Interior is at the heart of the matter. I
am not blaming the minister [Bayan Jabr] himself, but the rank and
file are behind the secret dungeons and some of the executions that
are taking place.' Responding to the former prime minister's comments,
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, said:
'It is inconceivable in the higher reaches of the command of the
multinational forces that there was not an awareness of what is being
done by some Iraqis to their own countrymen.

'The assertions by Mr Allawi simply underline the catastrophic failure
to have a proper strategy in place for the post-war period in Iraq.'