Last Day's of Saddam Hussein
A US senior official, who wished to remain anonymous, said that ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, seen here 21 December 2006, to be executed perhaps as early as Saturday.(AFP/POOL/File)December 28, 2006
CRAWFORD, United States (AFP)-The White House expects ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to be executed perhaps as early as Saturday, a senior official said on condition of anonymity.
The official cited information from US authorities in Baghdad that "it's not going to be tonight our time, or tomorrow their time, it's going to be maybe another day."
"It's the government of Iraq's decision," the official said, as US President George W. Bush and top national security aides mulled an overhaul of his Iraq war-fighting strategy.
Asked whether the execution could spark violence by lingering Saddam loyalists, the official replied that "they start violence for any reason they can come up with."
Update:
Pentagon: U.S. Forces Ready for Violence
December 29, 2006
The Pentagon said Friday that U.S. forces in Iraq are braced for any violence that may follow the execution of former President Saddam Hussein. Read more...
Note: While there is conflicting reports to who has Saddam, because early reports said he was in the Iraqi custody, the U. S. State Department insists he is still in their custody. (12/29/06)
Saddam Faces Execution Within Hours
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After your repeated, deliberate offenses against the defense lawyers and against the so-called "defendants", including restraining them in order to prevent them from saying the truth and from clarifying the realities, while at the same time you allow other titles and parties to make slanders, such as the statement of the "lawyer" of the civil plaintiff who argued claiming that there are ten billion dollars which have been seized by the Americans, as if these amounts belong personally to officials of our government or leadership, perhaps that Saddam Hussein is the one who has the largest share or the heaviest scale, as he tried to portray that to the public opinion –may disappointment and fie be upon him -. When I tried to illustrate the truth and I raised my hand three times, I was not given a chance to speak. For this, I would like to inform you that my spirit is disgusted at such continued abuses from you and from others, and that I cannot accept them. The spirit of Saddam Hussein has taught many how to be proud, honored and I have raised these values in them, so I reject haughtily attending only to be prejudiced by nobodies, traitors and sub collaborators. Based to the above, I request to exempt me from attending the sessions of this new mockery. It is up to you to take whatever measures you may deem.
Success is granted by Allah.
Allah is the Greatest
Fie be upon despicable
Saddam Hussein
President of the Republic
and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
4 December 2006
Saddam offers self as sacrifice
Letter: Saddam blames US, Iran for inflaming country’s sectarian bloodshed, calls on Iraqis to unite.
December 27, 2006
BAGHDAD - Ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein said in a letter released Wednesday that he would go to the gallows as a "sacrifice" and called on his former Iraqi subjects to unite against their enemies.
Saddam, in a letter written to the Iraqi people from his cell before his appeal against a death sentence failed, said: "I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, he will place me among the true men and martyrs."
Defence counsel Khalil Dulaimi said in Jordan that Saddam had written the letter in November when he was first sentenced to death and that it had been released to the public after the news that his appeal had failed.
"Its release was delayed by the length of the procedures imposed by the Americans," Dulaimi said, by way of explanation.
On Tuesday, a panel of appeals court judges confirmed Saddam's conviction for crimes against humanity and ordered that he be hanged within 30 days.
In what might therefore be his final message, Saddam blamed his old enemies the United States and Iran for the bloodshed engulfing Iraq, which is in the grip of a sectarian war between Sunni and Shiite factions.
"The enemies of your country, the invaders and the Persians have found your unity a barrier between you and those who are now ruling you. Therefore, they drove their hated wedge among you," he declared.
"O faithful people, I bid you farewell as my soul goes to God the compassionate," he wrote. "Long live Iraq. Long Live Iraq. Long live Palestine. Long live jihad and the mujahideen. God is great."
Links:
Arabic satellite channel Arabiya also reported the execution had taken place.
The former Iraqi president ousted in April 2003 by a U.S.-led invasion was convicted in November of crimes against humanity over the killings of 148 Shi'ite villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination bid in 1982.
An appeals court upheld the death penalty on Tuesday and the government rushed through the procedures to hang him by the end of the year and before the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on Saturday, coinciding with the haj pilgrimage to Mecca.
The government had kept details of its plans shrouded in secrecy amid concerns it could spark a violent backlash from his former supporters with Iraq on the brink of civil war.
The execution will delight Iraq's majority Shi'ites, who faced oppression during Saddam's three-decade rule, but may anger some in his resentful Sunni minority.
Some Kurdish leaders had sought a delay so they too could see justice for the man they accuse of genocide against them.
Saddam's conviction on November 5 was hailed by President Bush as a triumph for the democracy he promised to foster in Iraq after the invasion almost four years ago.
With U.S. public support for the war slumping as the number of American dead approaches 3,000, Washington is likely to welcome the death of Saddam, despite misgivings among many allies about capital punishment.
But the hanging could complicate efforts by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to heal Iraq's sectarian divisions with violence spiralling out of control and threatening to pitch the country into full-scale civil war.
Once the belligerent strongman of the Middle East, Saddam's power crumbled when U.S. tanks swept into Baghdad in April 2003. He fled and was captured in December that year by U.S. soldiers who found him hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.
During his three decades in power, Saddam was accused of widespread oppression of political opponents and genocide against Kurds in northern Iraq. His execution means he will never face justice on those charges.
Defiant to the end, Saddam insisted during his trial that he was still the president of Iraq.
He said in a letter written after his conviction in November that he offered himself as a "sacrifice.
(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Ibon Villelabeitia, Claudia Parsons in Baghdad and Suleiman Khalidi in Dubai)
Saddam hanged but no let-up in Iraq violence
A frame grab from Al Iraqiya television shows a piece of cloth being placed around former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's neck moments before his execution in Baghdad December 30, 2006.
posted by HRM Deborah of Israel and the Messenger of Peace at 11:38 PM
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