Ex-Iraqi ambassador says Saddam deserved to go

Iraq’s UN ambassador during the dying days of Saddam Hussein’s regime now says that his government deserved to be overthrown and that he would accept a trial for the former dictator.

But Mohammed al-Douri argued in a rare television interview being broadcast today that the Iraqis – and not the US-led coalition – should have been the ones to oust Saddam.

Al-Douri told BBC World that he thought people were glad Saddam was gone.

“But they are not glad that the Americans and British are there,” he said, according to a partial transcript.

“The regime is over and now we have to tackle another problem, the American and British presence in Iraq as a colonialist.”

Asked if Saddam’s regime deserved to be toppled, al-Douri said: “Not by you, but by the Iraqi people.”

For months, Al-Douri had vehemently defended Iraq as the US and its allies sought UN backing for war.

With US troops making rapid progress across Iraq, he became the first Iraqi official to publicly say the war was over before leaving New York in April.

During his time as Iraq’s UN ambassador, al-Douri repeatedly insisted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

In the BBC interview, he largely stuck to that claim, saying the government had told him these weapons were destroyed in 1991-92.

“I would right now believe that the Iraqi government wa not lying, and we are now waiting for the American and British to present evidence on these weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

Pressed about Saddam’s responsibility in the deaths of thousands of people, al-Douri said: “If he were judged, I would accept the trial and the legitimacy of the court.”

But he added that a murderer should be tried in his own national courts.

The former ambassador has largely stayed out of the public eye since abandoning his UN position.

His appearance on the BBC interview program “HARDTalk” came more than a month after a live chat with Dubai-based al-Arabiya television.

The BBC said the interview took place in the Gulf region, but gave no further details.