Iraq now one of world's leading users of death penalty - Just like Texas

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/world/middle-east/article2466827.ece

Friday, April 20, 2007

Iraq has become one of the world's leading users of the death penalty, according to figures published today by Amnesty International.

The human rights group says at least 65 people were executed by the Iraqi authorities last year, a total surpassed only by China, Iran and Pakistan.

More than 270 people have been put to death in Iraq since the US military handed authority to the Iraqi Government in August 2004. snip

However, Amnesty says that, in some cases, the laws brought in by the new Iraqi Government are even stricter than those from Saddam's time.

[Robbien]

1. How can a country under occupation really say it puts people to death

The occupiers are the ones running the show.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. So, fallback argument # 3 is also invalid?

>>Comparisons to the situation under Saddam Hussein are difficult because his regime obscured the number of people it sentenced to death.>>>

There were three main justifications advanced for the Iraq invasion:
1. WMDs
2. Saddam had some connection to al Qaeda.
3. The Iraqi regime was a brutal dictatorship, more or less unequaled in it's degree of brutality toward its citizenry.

Are we now to understand that there was no real basis for justification #3?