On his July 16 radio show, Rush Limbaugh reacted as follows to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report that interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi allegedly executed six suspected Iraqi insurgents before the June handover of power in Iraq: “Good. Hubba-hubba.”
From the July 16 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is reporting that the new Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi has executed six insurgents in front of witnesses, wanting to send a clear message to these people. Good. Hubba-hubba.
Now that's right. Now, you're going to have -- you're going to have -- you're going to have some of the powerless fearful Left in this country saying see, this is what Bush has done. Bush did this, no due process, they just kill them when you find them. We can't -- America's going to be hated in the world, blah blah blah blah. Well, the Iraqis are handling their own affairs.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's July 16 report was followed by a July 17 article in the Sydney Morning Herald, in which Herald writer Paul McGeough reported from Baghdad that the allegations against Allawi were made by “two people who allege they witnessed the killings.” The Herald also reported, “The Prime Minister's office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr. Allawi had never visited the centre [the Al-Amariyah security center, in Baghdad's southwestern suburbs] and he did not carry a gun.” The Washington Times, the Toronto Star, Bloomberg.com, and the Philadelphia Daily News also reported the story.