WASHINGTON, 8 January 2007 — US opposition to the hastily arranged execution of Saddam Hussein is slowly emerging with surprising detail of a last-minute battle between top Iraqi and American officials, and even between the Americans themselves, over whether the execution, full of legal ambiguities and Islamic religious sensitivities, should go ahead.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki argued with American military and diplomatic officials to hand Saddam over, notes Sunday’s edition of the New York Times.

This was further complicated by the fact that both US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, and the top American military commander, Gen. George Casey, were both out of Iraq on leave.

For Gen. Casey and Amb. Khalilzad, “the messy ending (of Hussein’s death) was made worse by the confirmation this week that Mr. Bush will soon replace both men as he refashions his Iraq war policy,” said the NYT.

Negotiations with Maliki were headed by Maj. Gen. Jack Gardner, and Margaret Scobey, head of the embassy’s political section, due to the absence of both Amb. Khalilzad and Gen. Casey.

“Tempers frayed” during the late Thursday night meeting, says the NYT, with Gen. Gardner insisting that Iraq’s constitution requires Iraq’s three-man presidency council approve all executions, and a Saddam-era law forbidding executions during religious holidays.

The NYT says Amb. Khalilzad “even made a last-ditch call to Maliki asking him not to proceed with the hanging. But, Maliki was adamant to go forward.”

It appears Khalilzad then contacted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “and she gave the green light for Mr. Hussein to be turned over, despite the reservations of the military commanders in Baghdad,” notes the NYT, adding that Stephen Hadley, Bush’s National Security Adviser, supported Rice’s decision

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the American command’s chief spokesman, said later at a briefing, that once Saddam was over to the Iraqis at 5:30 a.m. “we then had absolutely nothing to do with any of the procedures or control mechanisms or anything from that point.”

The NYT quotes an American official who watched this changeover, and said Saddam’s demeanor “changed in the Iraqi prison when the Iraqi governor assumed control of him, Saddam had long told his American captors that he trusted them but not the Iraqis.”

Once Saddam was dead, the NYT notes, “for nearly 17 hours, Maliki and his officials remained locked in a dispute with Sunni officials, and leaders of Saddam’s Abu Nasir tribe” as Maliki’s officials refused to release the body to them.

Throughout the arguments, Saddam’s body, “in a white shroud, remained inside the ambulance in the parking lot behind Mr. Maliki’s office.”

It was the Americans who flew a delegation from Tikrit to Baghdad, and back again, when at midnight, Maliki finally agreed to let the body go.