WASHINGTON, Jan 3: The United States had asked the Iraqi government to postpone Saddam Hussein’s execution for 15 days to allow another court, hearing genocide charges against him, to complete its proceedings but the request was ignored, officials said.

The trial over the killing of 180,000 Kurds in the late 1980s was nearing completion and a judgment was expected soon.

Authorities had hoped that a guilty verdict in another case would help establish the fact that Saddam’s victims were both Sunnis and Shias, as the Kurds are predominantly Sunni.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US military distanced itself from the hanging in the wake of international outrage over the mobile phone video taken by Iraqi officials supervising the execution. Authorities in Iraq have since arrested a senior official for filming the scene.

Military spokesman Maj Gen William Caldwell told journalists that after Saddam’s American guards handed over the custody of Saddam, `the multinational force has absolutely no direct involvement with that (the execution) whatsoever’.

Regarding the actual hanging, which has drawn cries of protest from around the world, Gen Caldwell said: "Would we have done things differently? Yes, we would have. But that's not our decision, that's a government of Iraq decision."

Saddam’s last rites – thanks to the unauthorised cell-phone video -- were detailed in lengthy reports published in all major US newspapers, some of which also wrote editorial notes.