'War ended torture rule '

Kabul: The US-led war ended the brutal rule of torture and tyranny under Saddam Hussain, even if Iraq today faces the perils of terrorism and corruption, President Jalal Talabani said yesterday, the eve of the invasion's fifth anniversary.

"The brutal regime of the dictator fell ... the regime that ruled Iraq for decades, the decades of darkness. The decades that were of tyranny," said Talabani in a statement released on Wednesday. During Saddam's iron-fisted rule, the prisons were full of "innocent prisoners", said Talabani, a Kurdish former rebel foe of Saddam.

"These cells were Saddam's theatres for torture and brutal crimes."

The former regime violated all values of humanity. It used chemical weapons on men, women and children of Halabja and carried out the brutal Anfal campaign," he said referring to military strikes launched by Saddam's forces on Iraqi Kurds in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war.

International human right activists say that nearly 180,000 Kurdish villagers were slaughtered in these strikes.

Talabani said the former regime kept the country "backward" even as the world progressed.

"Iraqis were not allowed to use mobile phones, or Internet or satellite channels. The regime prevented publishing of magazines and scientific journals," he said.

But the "liberation of Iraq" by US-led forces was the start of a new era, he said.

"The walk on this new path began five years ago but it faces huge difficulties. There is violence and terrorism and corruption has become a dangerous disease," he said.