posted January 27, 2007 12:35 AM              

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Both the making, and the leaking of an illicit video, showing the composed-looking Saddam subjected to sectarian taunts hurled by Shia officials who attended the execution as guards put the noose around the fomer leader’s neck, was deliberate black propaganda to further inflame the sectarian strife in Iraq.

"Whoever leaked this video meant to harm national reconciliation and drive a wedge between Shias and Sunnis," said National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, one of a group of 20 officials who witnessed the execution on Saturday.

"There was an infiltration at the execution chamber."

"The investigation has already had an arrest warrant against one person and two to follow," al-Rubaie told CNN.

On the other hand, Sami al-Askeri, a Shia lawmaker who advises Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said two "Justice Ministry guards were being questioned," over the video leak.

A second key al-Maliki aide, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said, "In the past few hours, the government has arrested the person who videotaped Saddam's execution. He was an official who supervised the execution, and now he is under investigation."

Washington on the other hand sent conflicting signals about the taunting that accompanied Saturday's execution, with White House declining to join worldwide condemnation of the procedure and the State Department and U.S. military raising questions about it.

"If you are asking me: "Would we have done things differently?' Yes, we would have. But that's not our decision. That's the government of Iraq's decision," said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, U.S. military spokesman.

But that was just another lie by the Bush administration.

Evidence from a senior Iraqi court official shows that Americans who were present at the hanging scene made sure mobile phones were taken from all those who attended the execution earlier this week, except two "high-ranking government officials," according to World Press Network.

So the mobile phone video was not recorded secretly, on the contrary, it was done openly and with the approval of both, the puppet Iraqi government, and the Americans who controlled who’s allowed and who’s not allowed to carry a mobile phone inside the execution room.

"Two officials were holding mobile phone cameras," reported Munqith al-Faroon, a prosecutor in the Dujail case, for which Saddam was sentenced to hang.

Faroon is also the chief prosecutor in Al Anfal trial that will continue against Saddam’s aides for genocide against the Kurds.

"One of them I know. He's a high-ranking government official," Faroon said, without naming the man. "The other I also know by sight, though not his name. He is also senior.

"I don't know how they got their mobiles in because the Americans took all our phones, even mine which has no camera."

The video which showed Saddam being humiliated in the last moments before his death and the dialogue that was exchanged between him and the guards who put the noose around his neck and were handpicked by Americans, has been the source of extensive debate throughout the week, and remained the focus of most news outlets’ headlines.