Word: iraqi
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...general Sultan Hashem Ahmed was prepared to die. He had written his will and left instructions about where his body should be buried. All that remained was to wait for his appointment with the hangman. At the gallows, there was extra security to thwart any rescue attempt, a senior Iraqi official tells Time. After all, Hashem was no ordinary criminal. Saddam Hussein's last Defense Minister had been condemned to death by an Iraqi court for his role in the slaughter of thousands of Kurds. Like his former boss before him, Hashem was held in Camp Cropper, a U.S. military...
...execution had never been announced, so its cancellation went unnoticed by the wider world. But Iraqi officials have told Time the reason Hashem never made it to the gallows that night: his U.S. military captors refused to hand him over. According to an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Americans' explanation was that key Iraqi leaders did not want the execution carried out. President Jalal Talabani, for instance, was opposed to the death sentence on principle. But Iraqi officials accused the U.S. of shielding Hashem for an entirely different reason: the general had been a U.S. collaborator...
...General Norman Schwarzkopf at the end of the first Gulf War. (Schwarzkopf would later say he was "suckered" by Hashem, who persuaded him to permit Iraq the use of helicopters later deployed by Saddam to kill thousands of rebellious Shi'ites.) Hashem rose to chief of staff of the Iraqi army and then Defense Minister. He remained popular with his troops, who admired his military bearing and plainspokenness. In April 2003, when Saddam's propaganda was still claiming military successes against the invaders, it was Hashem who announced publicly that U.S. forces were poised to enter Baghdad...
...important, Petraeus pledged to Hashem his "word that you will be treated with the utmost dignity and respect, and that you will not be physically or mentally mistreated while under my custody." Petraeus personally accepted Hashem's surrender in September 2003 and made his aircraft available so the former Iraqi Defense Minister could fly in comfort to Baghdad, where he was taken into custody. But Hashem was soon released and returned to live freely with his family in the northern city of Mosul. In June 2004, however, Hashem was taken into custody by the Iraqi government and put on trial...
...sentence left U.S. officials with a dilemma. Should they refuse to hand over a lawfully convicted prisoner and invite a confrontation with the Iraqi government, or should they deliver to the gallows a man who had risked his life to assist the U.S.? "We have certain principles," says the dia official. "When people help us, we really, really do try to go out of our way to keep promises." That sentiment may have won Hashem a reprieve, but it could prove temporary. A spokesman for Petraeus says the pledges made in 2003 don't apply to the current situation. "There...