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Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs and Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to de­clare a State of Emer­gency (SoE), ac­cus­ing the Op­po­si­tion of politi­cis­ing a mat­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty while re­it­er­at­ing that the mea­sure was nec­es­sary to ad­dress cred­i­ble crim­i­nal threats.

Ho­sein, a Mus­lim, has, how­ev­er, re­mained mum on the Gov­ern­ment's sup­port for the US at­tack on Iran. Is­rael is al­so sup­port­ing the US in the fight.

In a state­ment is­sued to­day fol­low­ing crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion, Ho­sein said the de­ci­sion to in­voke emer­gency pow­ers was not tak­en light­ly but was based on what he de­scribed as an ur­gent need to pro­tect law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and mem­bers of the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices.