ONE WEEK after the execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister Blair has again refused to comment on the lynching.
He said yesterday, trying to relegate the Iraq disaster to just another issue, that he would speak about ‘all those other issues’ next week.
He added, while on a tour of a heart hospital in London, ‘I’ll find a way to talk about it but not today. I want to concentrate on the NHS.’
The whole world is talking about Saddam’s assassination, except for Blair and Bush!
The most senior British comment has come from Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett shortly after the execution, who said: ‘I welcome that Saddam Hussein and the other defendants have faced justice and have been held to account for their crimes.’
The former Labour ‘left’ has not said another word since.
While holidaying at the Bee Gees Florida home last week, Blair refused to endorse Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott’s comment when he called the manner of Saddam’s execution ‘deplorable’, with Downing Street describing it as Prescott’s ‘personal opinion’.
Labour MPs, including former ministers Glenda Jackson and Peter Kilfoyle, have condemned Blair’s refusal to comment on Saddam’s execution.
Blair continued to insist on maintaining his silence yesterday, despite US President Bush finally speaking about the execution.
Bush said: ‘I wish, obviously that the proceedings had gone in a more dignified way. But my personal reaction is that Saddam Hussein was given a trial that he was unwilling to give the thousands of people he killed.’
It was the first time Bush had spoken on the subject.
However, one of Bush’s main allies in the Middle Eastern region, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, has been forced by popular anger to say that Saddam’s hanging has ‘made him a martyr.’
In an interview with Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, Mubarak said: ‘People are executed all over the world, but what happened in Baghdad on the first day of Id al-Adha was unthinkable. I didn’t believe it was happening,’
Mubarak said the pictures that have emerged were ‘revolting and barbaric’.
Mubarak revealed that he had sent a message to Bush urging him not to allow the execution to take place during the Id feast, marking the end of the Hajj.
Libya has said it will build a statue of Saddam showing him standing on the gallows with a Libyan resistance leader who fought Italian occupation, executed in 1931.
Libya declared three days of mourning after Saddam’s death and cancelled all public celebrations around the Id religious holiday.
On the eve of the hanging, Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadaffi said Saddam Hussein was a prisoner of war who must be tried by Iraq’s invaders, the US and Britain.
Flags on Libyan government buildings flew at half-mast following his death.
