Hussein executed

[thedrifter]

Hussein executed -- and Iraq braces
The deposed tyrant declines to wear a hood and shows no remorse in the death chamber. Violent reprisals by Sunnis are expected.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Solomon Moore, Times Staff Writers
December 30, 2006

BAGHDAD — A defiant Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn today in a secret concrete death chamber here as the Muslim call to prayer echoed over the capital.

Hussein and 14 Iraqi government representatives were flown by helicopter to the site, according to Iraqi High Tribunal Judge Munir Haddad. Guards escorted Hussein into the room, where he denounced the West and Iran.

Hussein then climbed the high ladder to the gallows.

As his executioners placed a noose around his neck, Hussein blanched but betrayed no emotion, Haddad said.

Hussein refused to wear a hood.

The charged silence that settled over the execution chamber was broken by an exchange between Hussein and four guards, who were apparently followers of Muqtada Sadr, the militant Shiite cleric whose father was killed by Hussein.

"Muqtada Sadr!" they cried out.

Hussein scoffed in reply.

His last word was a sarcastic "Muqtada," Haddad said. "And then he was hanged."

No cleric was provided. But as Hussein's life ebbed away, Haddad said, some of those present uttered a Muslim prayer often used by Shiite congregations to express gratitude: "May Allah bless Muhammad and his descendants."

The deposed Iraqi president had been convicted of crimes against humanity Nov. 5 for the killings of 148 men and boys from the town of Dujayl after a 1982 assassination attempt — a comparative handful among the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths for which he was responsible during his nearly four-decade rule.

His execution officially ends a bloody chapter in this nation's history but is not expected to quell the sectarian civil war and violent insurgency that have racked the country since his overthrow by an American-led invasion in 2003.

As news of the execution spread, some Iraqis here celebrated with the customary gunfire into the air, and television channels broadcast Hussein retrospectives complete with film of his many victims.

The hanging was photographed and videotaped, in part to provide proof in this rumor-driven society that the former dictator was truly dead, Iraqi TV also reported. But such documentation was not immediately made public.

The deposed Iraqi president's death warrant was signed Friday by the nation's two vice presidents, and execution witnesses gathered in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, according to an Iraqi official with knowledge of the proceedings. The hanging took place in an intelligence facility in northwest Baghdad.

U.S. officials said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki met with Cabinet officials and other politicians throughout Friday to plan the execution. Security was Iraqi leaders' main concern. Most officials expect Hussein's death to be followed by a rash of insurgent attacks as former Baathists retaliate against the Shiite-led government.

The government also sorted through execution procedural requirements Friday, including the timing of the execution and the assembly of the gallows.

U.S. military officials handed Hussein over to Iraqi officials around 8 p.m. Friday Baghdad time, according to one of Hussein's defense attorneys.

Hussein's execution seemed to be much less than the historic turning point many people in Iraq and the United States once thought it would be.

With Iraq mired in violence, the former dictator's demise no longer appeared to signal the beginning of new order. Instead, it seemed another reminder of the country's divisions.

And though Iraq has seen some positive developments, such as national elections, many Americans remain unconvinced that things in Iraq have fundamentally changed for the better.

President Bush said in a written statement that Hussein had been executed after receiving a fair trial, "the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime."

"Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial," Bush said in the statement issued in Crawford, Texas, where the president is taking a winter vacation at his ranch.

The execution "will not end the violence in Iraq," he said, "but it is an important milestone" in Iraq's effort to become a self-sustaining democracy and U.S. ally in fighting terrorism.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Scott Stanzel said Stephen J. Hadley, Bush's national security advisor, briefed the president about 6:15 p.m. CST about the imminent execution.

Stanzel said Hadley told the president that Maliki had informed Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, that the execution would take place within several hours. He added that Bush went to bed before the execution, around 9 p.m. CST, and was not awakened after it was carried out.

Maliki legal advisor Mariam Rayis said Hussein's death warrant was signed by Vice Presidents Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni Arab, and Adel Abdul Mehdi, a Shiite. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish death penalty opponent, was out of Baghdad on Friday and delegated his capital authority to Mehdi, Rayis said.

The gallows was set up by midnight Baghdad time, Rayis said, and Hussein was led to the scaffold dressed in normal clothes.

Defense lawyer Najib Nuaimi said U.S. military officials asked him Friday morning to send someone to pick up Hussein's personal effects, such as clothing, books — including a Koran — and a manuscript Hussein had been writing.

"He was writing his biography," Nuaimi said. "But I don't think he had a chance to complete it."

Among the witnesses at Hussein's hanging were a representative from the Interior Ministry, Iraqi High Tribunal Judge Munir Haddad, chief prosecutor Munqith Faroon, a physician, and a cleric who read from the Koran, Rayis said. Mowaffak Rubaie, Iraq's national security advisor, also attended.

Survivors from Dujayl did not attend, Rayis said.

Ali Hassan Mohammed Haidari, the first witness to take the stand against Hussein in the Dujayl case, wanted to see the execution but decided he didn't want to risk the dangerous drive to Baghdad, 60 miles away.

He said the execution made his family "very happy" but would not quell suffering. "You can imagine a mother who has lost seven children cannot avoid shedding tears even in the midst of this happy moment," he said.

Other Dujayl victims said their relief over Hussein's death was dampened by the fact that they had not witnessed their tormentor's final moments.

"I have been waiting for the last 40 years for such a moment," said Dujayl Mayor Mohammed Zubaidi, whose father and brother were killed in jail by Hussein's regime. "I was always hoping that this execution would take place inside the town of Dujayl because this is where the case happened."

Hussein's wife, who is in Qatar, and a daughter in Jordan could not attend the execution because they are both fugitives from Iraqi justice, Rayis said, and Hussein's lawyers were barred from attending.

Hussein defense attorney Bushra Khalil said that Raghad Ali, Hussein's eldest daughter, wanted her father to be buried in Yemen "until Iraq is free of the occupiers."

Hussein's family is "depressed," Khalil said.

Khalil said Hussein had told her that he refused sedatives offered by Americans to calm his nerves and he had been resigned to his fate.

"We asked him if he would like us to communicate anything to the leaders of the Arab world," she continued.

"He said no. His only request would be to Allah."

Khalil warned that Hussein's death would have violent consequences for Iraq.

Hussein's lawyers sought a temporary restraining order Friday at an appellate court in Washington, D.C., to force the U.S. military to retain custody of Hussein. Hours before Hussein's death, the court refused to intervene.

Hussein's execution coincided with the end of the hajj, the seasonal Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. Most Sunnis began Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, after morning prayers today; most Shiites will begin Sunday morning.

Nuaimi said that Maliki, a Shiite, had pushed for Hussein's execution during the holiday to "make a gift during Eid to his party."

Hussein "will be the sacrificial lamb for the Shiites, and the Iranians in particular," said Nuaimi, referring to many Muslims' practice of slaughtering lambs after pilgrimage for celebratory feasts.

U.S. officials expressed concern that news of the execution's imminence, which began circulating Thursday, might have given insurgents time to plan attacks. U.S. military officials said they had beefed up security in Baghdad in advance of the execution and to ward off possible retaliatory violence.

Iraqi and U.S. officials said the government would probably extend Friday's curfew indefinitely.

Hussein's family wants to bury him in his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq but are afraid the government will cremate him and scatter the ashes, Nuaimi said.

Rayis said Hussein's body was to be wrapped in a white sheet and would be buried by Iraq's Directorate of Social Welfare if it not claimed by a family member.

His execution ended other legal proceedings against Hussein, including his genocide trial involving the Anfal military campaign. That operation left tens of thousands of Kurds dead by gunfire, bombings and poison gas.

moore@latimes.com

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

Ellie

[thedrifter]

December 29, 2006

Saddam Hussein executed

By Christopher Torchia and Qassim Abdul-Zahra
The Associated Press


BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq with a remorseless brutality for a quarter-century and was driven from power by a U.S.-led war that left his country in shambles, was taken to the gallows and executed Saturday.

It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn insurgency by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.


President Bush called Saddam’s execution “the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.”

Also hanged were Saddam’s half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court. State-run Iraqiya television news announcer said “criminal Saddam was hanged to death and the execution started with criminal Saddam then Barzan then Awad al-Bandar.”

Mariam al-Rayes, a legal expert and a former member of the Shiite bloc in parliament, told Iraqiya television that the execution “was filmed and God willing it will be shown. There was one camera present, and a doctor was also present there.”

Al-Rayes, an ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, did not attend the execution. She said Al-Maliki did not attend but was represented by an aide.

The station earlier was airing national songs after the first announcement and had a tag on the screen that read “Saddam’s execution marks the end of a dark period of Iraq’s history.”

The execution was carried out around the start of Eid al-Adha, the Islamic world’s largest holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. Many Muslims celebrate by sacrificing domestic animals, usually sheep.

Sunnis and Shiites throughout the world began observing the four-day holiday at dawn Saturday, but Iraq’s Shiite community — the country’s majority — was due to start celebrating on Sunday.

The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982. Iraq’s highest court rejected Saddam’s appeal Monday and ordered him executed within 30 days.

A U.S. judge on Friday refused to stop Saddam’s execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge.

Al-Maliki had rejected calls that Saddam be spared, telling families of people killed during the dictator’s rule that would be an insult to the victims.

“Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence,” al-Maliki’s office quoted him as saying during a meeting with relatives before the hanging.

The hanging of Saddam, who was ruthless in ordering executions of his opponents, will keep other Iraqis from pursuing justice against the ousted leader.

At his death, he was in the midst of a second trial, charged with genocide and other crimes for a 1987-88 military crackdown that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. Experts said the trial of his co-defendants was likely to continue despite his execution.

Many people in Iraq’s Shiite majority were eager to see the execution of a man whose Sunni Arab-dominated regime oppressed them and Kurds.

Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday called Saddam’s execution “God’s gift to Iraqis.”

“Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam,” said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

On Thursday, two half brothers visited Saddam in his cell, a member of the former dictator’s defense team, Badee Izzat Aref, told The Associated Press by telephone from the United Arab Emirates. He said the former dictator handed them his personal belongings.

A senior official at the Iraqi defense ministry said Saddam gave his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

In a farewell message to Iraqis posted Wednesday on the Internet, Saddam said he was giving his life for his country as part of the struggle against the U.S. “Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs,” he said.

One of Saddam’s lawyers, Issam Ghazzawi, said the letter was written by Saddam on Nov. 5, the day he was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal in the Dujail killings.

The message called on Iraqis to put aside the sectarian hatred that has bloodied their nation for a year and voiced support for the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency against U.S.-led forces, saying: “Long live jihad and the mujahedeen.”

Saddam urged Iraqis to rely on God’s help in fighting “against the unjust nations” that ousted his regime.

Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam’s legal team, said U.S. authorities maintained physical custody of Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated, as has happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by force. He said they didn’t want anything to happen to further inflame Sunni Arabs.

“This is the end of an era in Iraq,” al-Nauimi said from Doha, Qatar. “The Baath regime ruled for 35 years. Saddam was vice president or president of Iraq during those years. For Iraqis, he will be very well remembered. Like a martyr, he died for the sake of his country.”

Iraq’s death penalty was suspended by the U.S. military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.

Saddam’s own regime used executions and extrajudicial killings as a tool of political repression, both to eliminate real or suspected political opponents and to maintain a reign of terror.

In the months after he seized power on July 16, 1979, he had hundreds of members of his own party and army officers slain. In 1996, he ordered the slaying of two sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan but returned to Baghdad after receiving guarantees of safety.

Saddam built Iraq into a one of the Arab world’s most modern societies, but then plunged the country into an eight-year war with neighboring Iran that killed hundreds of thousands of people on both sides and wrecked Iraq’s economy.

During that war, as part of the wider campaign against Kurds, the Iraqi military used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq, killing an estimated 5,000 civilians.

The economic troubles from the Iran war led Saddam to invade Kuwait in the summer of 1990, seeking to grab its oil wealth, but a U.S.-led coalition inflicted a stinging defeat on the Iraq army and freed the Kuwaitis.

U.N. sanctions imposed over the Kuwait invasion remained in place when Saddam failed to cooperate fully in international efforts to ensure his programs for creating weapons of mass destruction had been dismantled. Iraqis, once among the region’s most prosperous, were impoverished.

The final blow came when U.S.-led troops invaded in March 2003. Saddam’s regime fell quickly, but political, sectarian and criminal violence have created chaos that has undermined efforts to rebuild Iraq’s ruined economy.

While he wielded a heavy hand to maintain control, Saddam also sought to win public support with a personality cult that pervaded Iraqi society. Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq. His face could be seen on the sides of office buildings, schools, airports and shops and on Iraq’s currency.

[Ed Palmer]

Film At 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnOP9jA7r8w

[OLE SARG]

TOO DAMN BAD U. S. JUSTICE DON'T MOVE THIS FAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get sick of supporting arseholes on death row while their appeal processes burn up 10 to 20 years!!!!!! The victim's families don't get that consideration!!!!!

HANG 'EM HIGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If we started doing more, the crime rate would go down, I GUARANTEE IT!!!! Don't give me that **** about it wouldn't affect crime rates - I damn sure can guarantee it will cut down on repeat offenders!!

SEMPER FI,

[Ed Palmer]

SADAMS MISTRESS SAID HE WAS WELL HUNG!!
Well now we can all agree with her
he was WELL HUNG

[thedrifter]

A PROUD DAY FOR U.S. AND A LESSON FOR TYRANTS

By RALPH PETERS

December 30, 2006 -- SADDAM Hussein is dead. The mighty dictator met a criminal's end on the gallows. The murderer responsible for 1 1/2 million corpses is just a bag of bones.

For decades, the world pandered to his fantasies, overlooking his brutality in return for strategic advantages or naked profit. Diplomats, including our own, courted him, while the world's democracies and their competitors vied to sell him arms.

Saddam always bluffed - even, fatally, about weapons of mass destruction - but the world declined to call him on his excesses. Massacres went unpunished. His invasions of neighboring states failed to draw serious punishment. He never faced personal consequences until our troops reached Baghdad (a dozen years late).

As long as Saddam paid sufficient bribes and granted the right concessions to the well-connected, the world shut its eyes to his cavalcade of atrocities. Even when his soldiers raped Kuwait, the United Nations barely summoned the will to expel his military - and the alliance led by the United States declined to liberate Iraq itself from a tyrant with a sea of blood on his hands.

Everything changed in 2003. For all of its later errors in Iraq, the Bush administration altered the course of history for the better.

It may be hard to discern the deeper meaning of our march to Baghdad amid the chaos afflicting Iraq today, but President Bush got a great thing right: He recognized that the age of dictators was ending, that the era of the popular will had arrived. He and his advisers may have underestimated the difficulties involved and misread the nature of that popular will, but they put us back on the moral side of history.

Bush revealed the bankruptcy of the European-designed system of international relations. An unspoken code agreed between kings and czars, emperors and kaisers, had protected rulers - however monstrous - for centuries, while ignoring the suffering of the masses. The result was that any Third World thug who seized a presidential palace could ravage his country as long as his crimes remained within his "sovereign" borders.

Supported by other English-speaking democracies, Bush acted. Breaking Europe's cynical rules, our forces invaded a dictatorship to liberate its population.

And suddenly, the world was no longer safe for tyrants.

No matter the policy failures in the wake of Baghdad's fall, the destruction of Saddam's regime remains a historical turning point. When our troops later dragged the dictator out of a fetid hole, every other president-for-life shivered at the image.

Tonight, none of those other oppressors will sleep well. They may try to console themselves that America is failing in Iraq, that we've learned our lessons. But no matter what they tell themselves, they'll never feel safe again.

We set a noble precedent, and the critics who insist that deposing Saddam was a mistake are rushing to a very premature judgment.

We did a great thing by overthrowing Saddam. We may have done it poorly, but we did it. We also revealed the hypocrisy of those governments who sold out their professed values for oil money (and pathetically cheaply, too).

From Paris and Berlin through Moscow and Beijing, many will never forgive us. We should be honored.

Was justice done when the trapdoor opened under Saddam's feet? In a clinical sense, yes. But such an easy death was far too kind. He should have been turned loose, naked and handcuffed, in the central square of Halabja, where the survivors of his most notorious poison gas attack could have ripped his flesh with their bare hands.

But we live in a civilized community of nations. Bloodthirsty dictators must be executed humanely - and over the protests of human-rights advocates who insist they shouldn't be executed at all.

Still, Saddam's death was a last humiliation for him. He lived long enough to see his sons die, destroying his dynastic dreams. And long enough to discover that all those Iraqis jumping up and down and crying "We will die for you, Saddam!" didn't really mean it.

Given all of the recent violence in Iraq, it's remarkable how little has been committed in support of Saddam - occasional demonstrations on his home ground, and little else. There'll be a hiccup of violence now, but even his fellow Baathists have been seeking to regain power for themselves, not for their erstwhile master. (And it's easy to picture their relief at the death of the man they, too, once had to fear.)

The various factions of Iraq are fighting for many things - but Saddam hasn't been one of them. Sycophantic lawyers - Western and Iraqi - doubtless whispered that the people still supported him, that they and his Western friends would never let him hang. (He must have thought ruefully of Ramsey Clark as the noose tightened around his neck.)

Saddam's pathetic grandeur lies in ruins. Millions will celebrate his death; few will mourn. In the end, the all-powerful dictator was just a delusional old man in a cage insisting, "I am the president of Iraq!"

Of course, the Middle East has an ongoing problem with reality. Conspiracy theorists who insisted that the United States was keeping Saddam alive to restore him to power as part of a complex plot will now suggest that one of Saddam's doubles went to the gallows, that the dictator still lives, held in reserve by mysterious forces.

But Saddam Hussein is dead, condemned to death by an Iraqi court. Even the die-hards will figure it out in time.

Again, we can be proud that the United States of America brought him down. And that no dictator can ever feel entirely safe again.

President Bush changed the world. For all of today's carnage and confusion, and despite the appalling policy errors after Baghdad fell, the future will show that the change was for the better.

Ralph Peters' most recent book is "Never Quit the Fight."

Ellie

[SuNmAN]

now that he's dead give him a proper burial if his family wants it

[DWG]

Throw him in a mass grave, like he did to his victims, fill it with swine pieces and parts. No pity for him or his kin.

[3077India]

now that he's dead give him a proper burial if his family wants it

Why should he be given a proper burial, when he denied that to his victims. His daughter, according to Fox News, feels it best his body be laid to rest in Yemen and not in Iraq while it is occupied.

I say cremate him and mix his ashes with sewage.

[hrscowboy]

This really ****es me off the media can run videos and pictures of our veterans being dismembered in the streets and hung up on bridges but they cant show a turd like saddam swingin from a rope.. who gives a damn about him laying in the morgue i wanna see him swingin..

[SuNmAN]

Why should he be given a proper burial, when he denied that to his victims. His daughter, according to Fox News, feels it best his body be laid to rest in Yemen and not in Iraq while it is occupied.

I say cremate him and mix his ashes with sewage.

because we're better than that.

[greensideout]

because we're better than that.

We just had a proxy assassionation in a country that we illegally invaded according to international law. We're better then that???

[thedrifter]

December 31, 2006
Hussein Video Grips Iraq; Attacks Go On
By MARC SANTORA

BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 — Saddam Hussein never bowed his head, until his neck snapped.

His last words were equally defiant.

“Down with the traitors, the Americans, the spies and the Persians.”

The former ruler of Iraq’s final hour began about 5 a.m., when American troops escorted him from Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad airport, to another American base at the heart of the city, Camp Justice.

There, he was handed over to a newly trained unit of the Iraqi National Police, with whom he would later exchange curses. Iraq took full custody of Mr. Hussein at 5:30 a.m.

Two American helicopters flew 14 witnesses from the Green Zone to the execution site — a former headquarters of the deposed government’s much feared military intelligence outfit, the Istikhbarat, now inside the American base.

Mr. Hussein was escorted into the room where the red metal gallows stood, greeted at the door by three masked executioners known as Ashmawi. Several of the witnesses present — including Munkith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor for the court; Munir Haddad, the deputy chief judge for the Iraqi High Tribunal; and Sami al-Askari, a member of Parliament — described how the execution unfolded.

To protect himself from the bitter cold before dawn during the short trip, Mr. Hussein wore a 1940s-style wool cap, a scarf and a long black coat over a white collared shirt.

His executioners wore black ski masks, but Mr. Hussein could still see their deep brown skin and hear their dialects, distinct to the Shiite southern part of the country, where he had so brutally repressed two separate uprisings.

The room, only 30 feet square, had a foul odor. It was cold, had bad lighting and a sad, melancholic atmosphere. With the witnesses and another 11 other people — including guards and the video crew — it was cramped.

Mr. Hussein’s eyes darted about, trying to take in just who was going to put an end to him.

The executioners took his hat and his scarf.

Mr. Hussein, whose hands were bound in front of him, was taken to the judge’s room next door. He followed each order he was given.

He sat down and the verdict, finding him guilty of crimes against humanity, was read aloud.

“Long live the nation!” Mr. Hussein shouted. “Long live the people!”

He continued shouting until the verdict was read in full, and then he composed himself again.

When he rose to be led back to the execution room at 6 a.m., he looked strong, confident and incredibly calm. Whatever apprehension he may have had only minutes earlier had faded.

The general prosecutor asked Mr. Hussein to whom he wanted to give his Koran. He said Bandar, the son of Awad al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court who was also to be executed soon.

The room was quiet as everyone began to pray, including Mr. Hussein. “Prayers be upon Mohammed and his holy family.”

Two guards added, “Supporting his son Moktada, Moktada, Moktada.”

Mr. Hussein seemed a bit stunned, swinging his head in their direction.

They were talking about Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric whose militia is now committing some of the worst violence in the sectarian fighting; he is the son of a revered Shiite cleric, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who many believe Mr. Hussein had murdered.

“Moktada?” he spat out, a mix between sarcasm and disbelief.

The national security adviser in Iraq, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, asked him if he had any remorse or fear.

“No,” he said bluntly. “I am a militant and I have no fear for myself. I have spent my life in jihad and fighting aggression. Anyone who takes this route should not be afraid.”

Mr. Rubaie, who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Hussein, asked him about the murder of the elder Mr. Sadr.

They were standing so close to each other that others could not hear the exchange.

One of the guards, though, became angry. “You have destroyed us,” the masked man yelled. “You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution.”

Mr. Hussein was scornful. “I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persian and Americans.”

The guard cursed him. “God damn you.”

Mr. Hussein replied, “God damn you.”

Two of the witnesses exchanged a quiet joke, saying that they gathered the goal of disbanding the militias had yet to be accomplished.

The deputy prosecutor, Mr. Faroun, berated the guards, saying, “I will not accept any offense directed at him.”

Mr. Hussein was led up to the gallows without a struggle. His hands were unbound, put behind his back, then fastened again. He showed no remorse. He held his head high.

“He proved that he was courageous,” said one of his bitter enemies who could not help respect his calm in the face of death.

The executioners offered him a hood. He refused. They explained that the thick rope could cut through his neck and offered to use the scarf he had worn earlier to keep that from happening. Mr. Hussein accepted.

The platform he stood on was very high, with a deep hole beneath it.

He said a last prayer. And then, his eyes wide open, no stutter or choke in his throat, said his final words cursing the Americans and the Persians.

At 6:10 a.m., the trapdoor swung open. He seemed to fall a good distance, but he died swiftly. After just a minute, he was not moving. His eyes still were open but he was dead.

His body stayed hanging on the rope for another nine minutes as those in attendance broke out in prayer, praising the Prophet, at the death of a dictator.

Ali Adeeb and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting from Baghdad.


Ellie

[DWG]

We just had a proxy assassionation in a country that we illegally invaded according to international law. We're better then that???

This is just so wrong in so many ways. Invasion was legal under un protocol.(sometimes that useless body comes in handy) Trial was by an Iraqi tribunal. Execution by Iraqis. If we were vicious, we would have turned him over to the Shi'ites and let them deal with him an inch at a time. BTW; Bush was legally elected both times.

[SuNmAN]

We just had a proxy assassionation in a country that we illegally invaded according to international law. We're better then that???

although Iraq is a mess right now, we overthrew a genocidal dictator

so yes, we're better than that