Meanwhile, the new unelected government also yesterday reimposed the death penalty for capital crimes including murder, kidnapping, endangering national security and distributing drug. It is not to clear if the order will retroactively apply to Saddam Hussein.

Allawi Orders Al-Jazeera Office Shut
On Saturday, Prime Minister Allawi ordered Al Jazeera’s office in Baghdad to be shut down for one month. He accused it of being a threat to national security by inciting the Iraqi resistance. The station’s Baghdad’s bureau has been ordered shut before, first by Saddam Hussein in 2002, later by the Iraq’s Governing Council.

Iraq’s Interior Minister said the closure was intended to give the station a chance to readjust their policy against Iraq. He said “They have been showing a lot of crimes and criminals on TV, and they transfer a bad picture about Iraq and about Iraqis and encourage criminals to increase their activities. We want to protect our people.”

The order came a day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discussed Al Jazeera before the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. He said “it has been a terribly damaging thing to have what Al-Jazeera and Al- Arabiyah have done to our country in the Middle East. They have persuaded an enormous fraction of the people that we’re there as an occupying force, which is a lie.”