jodawi | good to know that it was all worthwhile

... "People are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein's time and worse," said Allawi, an prominent opponent of Saddam who steered the US-backed interim government in Baghdad until April this year.

"It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam Hussein and now we are seeing the same things."

Allawi's remarks came two weeks after US troops raided a secret prison in Iraq and found about 170 detainees in need of water, food and medical attention.

Graphic pictures released by the Committee of Muslim Scholars, the main Sunni religious organisation in Iraq, showed prisoners with severe burns, massive bruising and welts on their bodies.
...
"I am not blaming the minister himself, but the rank and file are behind the secret dungeons and some of the executions that are taking place," he was quoted as saying.

He also said: "We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated."

"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 if immediate action is not taken, "the disease infecting (the interior ministry) will become contagious and spread to all ministries and structures of Iraq's government"...