Sunday November 27, 2005 9:46 AM

LONDON (AP) - Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein and could become even worse, the country's former interim prime minister said in an interview published Sunday.

``People are doing the same as Saddam's time and worse,'' Ayad Allawi told The Observer newspaper. ``It is an appropriate comparison.''

Allawi accused fellow Shiites in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centers and said the brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam's secret police.