Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein if not worse, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has said.

“People are doing the same as (in) Saddam’s time and worse,” Allawi said in an interview published in Britain on Sunday.

“It is an appropriate comparison,” Allawi told The Observer newspaper. “People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.”…

The remarks also follow the discovery of an Iraqi government facility holding 170 prisoners, including some showing signs of torture. (Full story)

“We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated,” said Allawi, who was Iraq’s first prime minister of the post-Saddam Hussein era. (link)

The difference is people can talk about it openly. There will always be sadistic scumbags in the world be it Qusay Hussein or Lindsay Englund. The measure of a culture is how that culture deals with the scumbags. Qusay was living in palaces and next in line to the presidency. Englund is rotting in a federal pen.