Iraqi leaders hit back at Allawi abuse claims

[sabra]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L27733008.htm

Iraqi leaders hit back at Allawi abuse claims

LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Sunday hit back at former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for saying human rights abuses in Iraq were as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein.

"I cannot imagine that such nonsense has been said by Dr Allawi because he is very well aware that now in Iraq we are enjoying all kinds of democratic rights," Talabani told BBC World television after Allawi's comments appeared in British newspaper The Observer.

"If we go back to Saddam's Iraq, we see that it was turned by Saddam into concentration camps on the ground and mass graves underground. How can one compare this new situation with that situation which was unique?" Talabani added.

Allawi was Iraq's first prime minister of the post-Saddam era but failed to win January's election, which brought current Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, an Islamist Shi'ite, to power.