men
Posted on 12/31/2006 7:44:57 AM PST by dogbyte12
Later this evening, another video of the hanging popped up, this time being shown on Al-Jazeera and Arabiya, two Arabic TV channels based in the Gulf. The new video was of poor quality, was very jerky, and had clearly been shot on a cell phone or some similar device from below by one of the two dozen witnesses to the event. It also had sound. The picture it gave of Saddam’s last moments was very different from the edited, silent version that the Iraqi government had released earlier.
There are five men in black face masks who are visible on the gallows platform around Saddam, acting as guards. As they guide him towards the trap door and put the noose over his head, they start chanting religious slogans with the names of Moqtada al Sadr (the head of the Mahdi army, accused of organizing death squads against Sunnis) and Baqr al Sadr (the father-in-law of Moqtada). Saddam, a Sunni, is outraged at this last-minute provocation, and tells them to “go to hell.” This is generally where the two TV stations cut the video, but on at least one occasion that we saw, Arabiya allowed the video to keep rolling: The cell phone camera is jerked down to the ground, as if the person holding it had to conceal the camera, then it is slowly raised up to Saddam again, and suddenly his body shoots down through the trapdoor. At this, the Arabiya anchor came on and made a scissors symbol with two fingers with a mischievous grin on his face, as if to say that they really shouldn’t have shown that, but so be it. However, the impact of this video could be quite significant. First, it may reinforce Sunni suspicions that the execution of Saddam was merely an act of Shiite revenge for decades of repression under Saddam. The building where the execution took place was expressly chosen because it was once used as a detention center by a division of Saddam’s secret police that was focused on the Shiite Dawa party. Some of the witnesses whom the government invited to the execution had themselves once been tortured in that same building. Indeed, Prime Minister Maliki, who signed the execution order the day before the hanging, is a long-term member of the Dawa party and had himself been sentenced to death by Saddam back in 1980 before fleeing the country.
This execution was about the law and justice. It was not supposed to be about Al Sadr's mob getting revenge on their enemy. Them crowing and shouting Al Sadr's name is extremely unfortunate. What Sunni will not take it as an insult. It is one thing to kill this butcher, but to do it in the name of Al Sadr makes me want to puke. Al Sadr is a thug, a trouble maker, and Saddam was killed by his followers.
Why can't the Iraqis even get an execution right. They should have let us do it if they were going to pull this crap.
Drudge has a link up to the execution being shown to completion. I won't link to it directly in case children are reading this thread.
I wondered what the chanting was, that is not good.
Sorry, but there is no law and no justice in this islam nation. Nothing but payback for many years to come.
He is gone - good riddance!
Why did Maliki do this though? I can understand that Al-Sadr is threatening to leave the government. But letting his followers kill Saddam, they should have been ordered to keep their mouths shut and do it with dignity, instead of bragging about them being Al-Sadr flunkies. The execution went off well. They should have kept their mouth's shut. Maliki did something stupid by letting these nuts get involved.
By several accounts, Saddam was calm but scornful of his captors, engaging in a give-and-take with the crowd gathered to watch him die and insisting he was Iraq's savior, not its tyrant and scourge.
"He said we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians," Munir Haddad, an appeals court judge who witnessed the hanging, told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Another witness, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told The New York Times that one of the guards shouted at Saddam: "You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution."
"I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persian and Americans," Saddam responded, al-Rubaie told the Times.
"God damn you," the guard said.
"God damn you," responded Saddam.
New video, first broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite television early Sunday, had sound of someone in the group praising the founder of the Shiite Dawa Party, who was executed in 1980 along with his sister by Saddam.
Saddam appeared to smile at those taunting him from below the gallows. He said they were not showing manhood.
Then Saddam began reciting the "Shahada," a Muslim prayer that says there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger, according to an unabridged copy of the same tape, apparently shot with a camera phone and posted on a Web site.
Saddam made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse. His last word was Muhammad.
The floor dropped out of the gallows.
"The tyrant has fallen," someone in the group of onlookers shouted. The video showed a close-up of Saddam's face as he swung from the rope.
Then came another voice: "Let him swing for three minutes."
The U.S. Army should have handled the execution just as it had with the Nazis and Japanese after World War II. The message thus sent to Mookie Sadr, Iran, Syria, and North Korea would therefore have been much more meaningful and had more impact for U.S. interests.
We are in control of Iraq so actually it was done according to our wishes.
I seriously doubt that we wished them to chant Al-Sadr slogans.
Al Sadr...I've heard that name before. Wasn't he the absolute coward that fled Fallujah?
men
They show a lot worse stuff on regular TV that kids see. I wish our justice system worked this quickly with death row inmates.
Al Sadr is our enemy. His militia takes shots at OUR troops. It does matter to me. It should have been parents of those executed by Saddam. Not militia members. Show me some proof that Al-Sadr is going anywhere. He is part of the government now.
Perhaps Moqtada should join Saddam in the New Year?
The US Army did not try him, nor convict him. The court was Iraqi, the execution order Iraqi, and the execution was Iraqi. If the US took over the execution, the court would appear to be nothing but a puppet.
We seem to be looking for the good guys in Iraq. I fear there are none... only some who are worse than others. This is not a nation as we understand nations. It is only a collection of tribes. Multiculturalism in its most extreme form.
When he was delivered to the gallows we knew the environment. We could have stopped it in 2 seconds. Who do you think was guarding the premises.
They sure are a loud bunch, aren't they! ~whew........
I agree. This presents the image that the a death squad from the Madhi Army executed Saddam, not the impartial agents of a secular Iraqi state. While that's a fantastic development for al-Sadr, it's not a good sign for the future. Most Iraqis will take the symbolism at face value.
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