U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki discussed the situation in Iraq, including the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, White House spokesman Tony Snow said at a briefing on Thursday.

During the telephone conversation, Bush told Maliki that it was the "right thing" to investigate the controversy over the execution of Saddam Hussein.

"But he expressed that it was the right thing to do, to investigate the taping and behavior at the execution of Saddam Hussein," Snow said,

"They also spent a lot of time talking about the way forward in Iraq," Snow said.

The Maliki government has been under pressure over the controversy caused at Saddam's execution. In a video taken before Saddam's execution, one of those present mocked Saddam and chanted "Moqtada! Moqtada! Moqtada!", a reference to one of Saddam's fiercest foes, Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The video has stirred anger among the Sunnis in Iraq as well as fears of more violence in the country.

The United States launched the Iraq war and toppled the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003 on the grounds that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties with al-Qaida terror network. However, none of these has been proved existent.

Source: Xinhua