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Within days of taking power, Saddam Hussein summoned about 400 top officials and announced he had uncovered a plot against the ruling party. The conspirators, he said, were in that very room. As the 42-year-old Saddam coolly puffed on a cigar, names of the supposed plotters were read out. As each name was called, secret police led them away. Twenty-two people were executed. To make sure Iraqis got the word, Saddam videotaped the entire proceeding and distributed copies across the country. The plot claim was a lie. But in a few terrifying minutes on July 22, 1979, Saddam eliminated his...

The extraordinary, turbulent, hugely controversial life of Saddam Hussein was brought to an end at dawn this morning, between 0530 and 0545 local time, just as the call to prayer was sounding across Baghdad. Saddam carried a copy of the Koran to his execution A small group of Iraqis, including a representative of the Iraqi prime minister and a Sunni Muslim cleric, were brought to witness the execution. It took place in an Iraqi compound known by the Americans as 'Camp Justice', a secure facility in the northern Baghdad suburb of Khadimeya, outside the Green Zone. Several recent executions have...

Poland welcomes Saddam execution Berlin, Dec 30, IRNA The Polish government expressed support for the hanging of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, DPA reported Saturday. Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Kowal told Polish radio that although he opposes the death penalty, he would make an exception in the case of Saddam. Iraqis will soon forget Saddam, the Polish official said. Saddam died by hanging around dawn after an Iraqi appeals court upheld an earlier death verdict against him for his role in the 1982 killings of Shiites.

SADDAM HANGS Just in time for Eid, the Iraqis decided Saddam Hussein was one old acquaintance who really should be forgot. Despite The New York Times’ protests that it’s all been too rushed, it’s three years since the mass murderer was pulled from his spider hole. Here’s what I wrote in The Spectator in December 2003, outlining the possible approaches to the trial: In a nutshell: A courtroom in Baghdad: good. A courtroom in The Hague: bad. Iraqi and coalition judges: good. International jet-set judges: bad. Swift execution: good. Playing Scrabble with Slobo in the prison library for the next...

Defiant to the end, Saddam Hussein mocked Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr moments before he was hanged, a witness said Saturday. The Iraqi government executed Hussein before dawn as punishment for his role in a massacre of his own people, more than two decades before he was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion. A video of the execution broadcast on Al-Iraqiya state television showed Hussein, dressed in a black overcoat, being led into a room by three masked guards. (Watch noose placed around Hussein's neck -- graphic content, viewer discretion advised ) A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of...

Defiant to the end, Saddam Hussein mocked Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr moments before he was hanged, a witness said Saturday.

Former Iraqi Dictator and Mass Murderer Saddam Hussein has been executed! From My Way News: BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - 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 clutching a Quran and hanged Saturday.In Baghdad’s Shiite enclave of Sadr City, people danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to celebrate the former dictator’s death. The government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was...

Fox News is running a story that it has confirmed that Saddam has been handed over to Iraqi authorities. Fox says that an Iraqi judge has said Saddam will be executed tomorrow at the latest.

The men who were hanged alongside Saddam (AFP) 30 December 2006 BAGHDAD - The two men hanged alongside Saddam on Saturday were Barzan Ibrahim Hassan Al Tikriti, one of Saddam’s three half-brothers and a former director of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, and Awad Ahmed Al Bandar Al Sadun, former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddam’s office. Like Saddam, they were sentenced to death for their roles in the massacre of 148 Iraqi Shias from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed attempt on the former dictator’s life in 1982. BARZAN IBRAHIM...

Dec. 30, 2006 - Ali Al Massedy was 3 feet away from Saddam Hussein when he died. The 38 year old, normally Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's official videographer, was the man responsible for filming the late dictator's execution at dawn on Saturday. "I saw fear, he was afraid," Ali told NEWSWEEK minutes after returning from the execution. Wearing a rumpled green suit and holding a Sony HDTV video camera in his right hand, Ali recalled the dictator's last moments. "He was saying things about injustice, about resistance, about how these guys are terrorists," he says. On the way to...

BAGHDAD, Dec 30 (KUNA) -- The ousted dictator Saddam Hussein as executed early on Saturday in the Baghdad northern suburban district of Al-Kathmiah, a member of the legislative authority said. Sami Al-Askari said in a statement that Saddam was hanged in a building that used to be occupied by the intelligence authority of the toppled Baath regime. Muwaffak Al-Rabiee, the national security advisor, said Saddam appeared subdued and panicked when he was dragged to the gallows, and that he made no will ahead of the execution. With the announcement of the execution many Iraqis opened fire into the air...

Iraqi TV is now showing edited footage of the execution of Saddam.

The Muslim religious holiday Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, is meant to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son on God's orders. But now the holiday could also be associated with something else: the execution of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

SADDAM Hussein was given a proper trial and was dealt with according to Iraqi law, Prime Minister John Howard said today after the execution of the former Iraqi dictator. Saddam was executed in Baghdad, four days after an Iraqi court upheld the death sentence handed down after he was convicted for the 1982 massacre in the Iraqi city of Dujail. "The real significance is that this man has been given a proper trial, due process was followed," Mr Howard said. "There was an appeal that was dismissed and he has been dealt with in accordance with the law of Iraq."...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator who spent his last years in captivity after his ruthless regime was toppled by the U.S.-led coalition in 2003, was hanged before dawn Saturday for crimes committed in a brutal crackdown during his reign. The execution took place shortly after 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told Iraqi television. "This dark page has been turned over," Rubaie said. "Saddam is gone. Today Iraq is an Iraq for all the Iraqis, and all the Iraqis are looking forward. ... The [Hussein] era has gone forever."...

(CNN) -- A witness to Saddam Hussein's execution in Baghdad said that celebrations broke out after the former dictator died, and that there was "dancing around the body." "Saddam's body is in front me," said an official in the prime minister's office when CNN telephoned. "It's over." In the background, Shiite chanting could be heard. When asked about the chanting, the official said "These are employees of the prime minister's office and government chanting in celebration." The execution took place shortly after 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told Iraqi television. A power outage...

Within days of taking power, Saddam Hussein summoned about 400 top officials and announced he had uncovered a plot against the ruling party. The conspirators, he said, were in that very room. As the 42-year-old Saddam coolly puffed on a cigar, names of the supposed plotters were read out. As each name was called, secret police led them away. Twenty-two people were executed. To make sure Iraqis got the word, Saddam videotaped the entire proceeding and distributed copies across the country. The plot claim was a lie. But in a few terrifying minutes on July 22, 1979, Saddam eliminated his...

A group of Iraqi-Americans gathered late Friday at a mosque in anticipation of Saddam Hussein's execution, praying for the death of the former Iraqi dictator as drivers outside honked horns in celebration. Dave Alwatan wore an Iraqi flag around his shoulders and flashed a peace sign to everyone he passed at the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in this suburb of Detroit, a city that has one of the nation's largest concentrations of people with roots in the Middle East. "Peace," he said, grinning and laughing. "Now there will be peace for my family." Alwatan, 32, said Saddam's forces tortured and...

Statement of President Bush on the death by hanging of Saddam Hussein, as provided by the White House: Today, Saddam Hussein was 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. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people's determination to create a society governed by the rule...

Dozens of Iraqi-Americans gathered late yesterday at a Detroit-area mosque to celebrate reports that Saddam Hussein had been executed, cheering and crying as drivers honked horns in jubilation. Dave Alwatan wore an Iraqi flag around his shoulders and flashed a peace sign to everyone he passed at the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in this suburb of Detroit, a city that has one of the nation's largest concentrations of people with roots in the Middle East. "Peace," he said, grinning and laughing. "Now there will be peace for my family." Mr. Alwatan, 32, said Saddam's forces tortured and killed relatives that...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's lawyers have been asked to pick up his personal effects but Iraq's Justice Ministry denied it had taken custody of the former president and dismissed a U.S. suggestion he would hang as early as Saturday. One defense lawyer, who declined to be identified, said Saddam had been handed over by U.S. forces to Iraqi government custody. U.S. military spokesmen said they had nothing to add to a statement late on Thursday that he was still in their control. Asked about comments from the defense lawyer that Saddam had been handed over, Deputy Justice Minister Bosho...

Check out the nice picture they posted at http://www.cnn.com

Some comments on the executing of Saddam Hussein: ___ "Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence." — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. ___ Saddam's execution punishes "a crime with another crime. ... The death penalty is not a natural death. And no one can give death, not even the state." — Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI's top prelate for justice issues. ___ "Today marks an important milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of...

Saddam Hussein hanged, says Al Hurra TV station By Mariam Karouny 6 minutes ago U.S.-backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday.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...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein will hang at dawn on Saturday, Iraqi officials told Reuters, setting a dramatic end for a leader who ruled Iraq by fear for three decades before a U.S. invasion and his conviction for crimes against humanity. As the call to prayer echoed out across a dark and bitterly cold Baghdad at 5:30 p.m. (0230 GMT) on one of the holiest days of the Muslim calendar, a cleric and other official witnesses were preparing for Saddam to mount the scaffold within minutes, a U.S.-funded Iraqi television channel said. Earlier, senior officials told Reuters they were expecting...

<p>The Drop Broke Saddam's neck killing him instantly. At the executions following the Nuremberg Trials others were not so lucky.</p> <p>"..The executions, in a brightly lighted prison gymnasium where three looming black wooden gallows had been erected, were witnessed by a handful of Allied military officers and eight journalists, one of whom, Kingsbury Smith of International News Service, wrote a famous newspaper article, "The Execution of Nazi War Criminals, 16 October 1946," based on his eyewitness observations. Although Smith discreetly omitted mentioning it, the experienced Army hangman, Master Sgt. John C. Woods, botched the executions. A number of the hanged Nazis died, not quickly from a broken neck as intended, but agonizingly from slow strangulation. Ribbentrop and Sauckel each took 14 minutes to choke to death, while Keitel, whose death was the most painful, struggled for 24 minutes at the end of the rope before expiring..."</p>

For the Democratic Underground Losers, the fact of the matter is that Saddam has finally met his maker and is welcomed in hell, thanks to the leadership of President Bush, our troops and coalition partners. Unlike the failed leadership of former President KKKlinton(I will forever spell it with a triple K)who could not even get a conviction against Slobodan Milosevic and who in the end died without being convicted of one crime and our troops remain forever stuck in Balkans in an openended and failed babysitting mission.

News agencies report that U.S. officials have informed Saddam Hussein's lawyers that they have handed Hussein to Iraqi authorities, according to one of the lawyers.

Should Iraq Hang Saddam Hussein? By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem----December 29...... Should Saddam Hussein die by hanging? This is a question that each and every one of us should ask. First, should Saddam die? According to a senior Vatican official, the Pope has condemned the death sentence against Saddam Hussein reiterating that capital punishment goes against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI’s top prelate for justice issues and a former Vatican envoy to the United Nations, said that Hussein’s execution would punish “a crime with another crime” and expressed hope that...

(His)Final Thoughts At 10 PMTrying to do this with dignity: In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis." BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)--An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Friday EST. Also to be hanged at that time were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, the adviser said. The time was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said the adviser, who...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein has been handed over by U.S forces to Iraqi government custody, his lawyers said on Friday, in an apparent step toward his execution. "I understand they have handed him over," said one defense lawyer who declined to give his name. Another lawyer said that U.S. officials had asked him to pick up the personal effects of the former Iraqi president who has been sentenced to death. "The American side called me and asked me to pick up the personal effects of the president and Barzan al-Tikriti," said Khalil al-Dulaimi, referring to Saddam's half brother, who...

Watch what this machine did to Saddam's victimsIt's safe to watch this video. But think how this must have felt to a human being. Sometimes Saddam would have them thrown in head-first, but other times -- to increase the agony -- he would have them thrown in feet-first.Saddam deserves his fate.

MRC’s Michelle Humphrey passed along an example of CNN already feeling the pain of Saddam Hussein. On Thursday night’s "Anderson Cooper 360" – re-aired Friday in the 9 AM hour – CNN reporter Randi Kaye did a whole story suggesting the idea that hanging Saddam was a cruel and outdated mode of execution. This is the same program that recently focused on the coldly efficient killers of American troops without focusing any sympathy on their suffering. Instead, they focused on how insurgents supposedly tried not to slaughter innocents as they shot at American troops. Kaye began: "This is what...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - 1229dvs-saddam-schedule The witnesses to Saddam Hussein's impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities. A top Iraqi official said Saddam will be executed before 10 p.m. EST Friday. The Iraqi government readied all the necessary documents, including a "red card" - an execution order introduced during Saddam's dictatorship. As the hour of his death approached, Saddam received two of his half brothers in his cell on Thursday and was said to have given them his personal belongings and a copy...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein's execution could come by tomorrow, amid conflicting reports about whether he has been handed over to Iraqi officials. Mr. Hussein's lawyers filed documents Friday afternoon asking for an emergency restraining order aimed at stopping the U.S. government from relinquishing custody of the condemned former Iraqi leader to Iraqi officials, a spokeswoman for a federal court in Washington D.C. said. Earlier in day, Mr. Hussein's lawyers said the former dictator had already been transferred from U.S. custody, and an Iraqi judge authorized to attend Mr. Hussein's hanging said he would be executed no later than Saturday....

By most codes of justice, his execution would be fitting retribution for a brutal life. But it won't extinguish the fires of sectarian hatred any more than it will relieve the pain of his victims By the time you read this, Saddam Hussein may be dead. When Iraq's Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Saddam's appeal of his death sentence, the tyrant's luck finally ran out. That there would be no reprieve was apparently evident to Saddam himself, who penned a farewell letter to his former subjects in which he seemed to welcome a martyr's death — while adding that if...

<p>WASHINGTON - Lawyers for Saddam Hussein have asked a U.S. judge to block his transfer to the custody of Iraqi officials poised to carry out his execution.</p> <p>Hussein's lawyers filed documents Friday afternoon asking for an emergency restraining order aimed at stopping the U.S. government from relinquishing custody of the condemned former Iraqi leader to Iraqi officials, a spokeswoman for a federal court in Washington D.C. said.</p>

Saddam Hussein may be hanged within hours, senior Iraqi officials and the ousted president's defence team said on Friday. One senior Iraqi source told Reuters key legal issues had been resolved and he could go to the gallows shortly. Another official said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was meeting key figures, including the Justice Minister, to agree the details.

Quote:"Giovanni di Stefano, one of Hussein's defense attorneys, told CNN the U.S. military officially informed him that the former Iraqi dictator has been transferred to Iraqi authorities for his execution and that a "credible source" had told him Hussein will be executed "very shortly -- in the next couple of hours." CNN Report Sources: Hussein execution nears POSTED: 3:05 p.m. EST, December 29, 2006 Story Highlights: • NEW: Iraqi lawmaker said he saw judge, cleric, and physician at gallows • NEW: Reports conflict over whether Hussein is in U.S. or Iraqi custody • Hussein's lawyers say U.S. officials have canceled...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Television networks face a killer of a conundrum with the impending execution of Saddam Hussein, whose hanging could be videotaped and perhaps aired on Iraqi TV. The timing of Saddam's date with the gallows was unclear, but late Thursday CBS, NBC and Fox News Channel reported that the former dictator, convicted this year in the deaths of 148 people in 1982, would be turned over by the American military to the Iraqi government within 36 hours and hanged before the start of a Muslim holiday on Sunday. Several sources said Saddam's execution would be videotaped...

CHICAGO The Reverend Jesse Jackson says U-S forces should not turn Saddam Hussein over to the Iraqi government for execution. Jackson says that to allow the former Iraqi leader to be hanged as what he calls "a war trophy" would be a "barbarity" that would only inflame tensions. Jackson says making Saddam spend the rest of his life in prison would be a better way to "break the cycle of violence in Iraq."

Just breaking on FOX...

The execution of Saddam Hussein will be carried out without delay, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Friday, adding that there was "no going back" with regard to the death sentence handed down to the ex-dictator. "Nobody can abrogate the verdict and whoever refuses Saddam's execution underestimates the Iraqi martyrs," al-Maliki told state television. "There will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence," al-Maliki said. Legal sources in Baghdad meanwhile said that the verdict, originally handed down November 5 and upheld by an appeals court on Tuesday, is decisive. The Iraqi Ministry of Justice is now...

Saddam Hussein has been transferred from U.S. custody, his lawyers said, and an Iraqi judge authorized to attend the former dictator's hanging said he would be executed no later than Saturday. The physical hand-over of Saddam to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged, although the lawyers' statement did not specifically say Saddam was in Iraqi hands. "A few minutes ago we received correspondence from the Americans saying that President Saddam Hussein is no longer under the control of U.S. forces," according to the statement faxed to The Associated Press....

Saddam Hussein 'in Iraqi hands' Saddam Hussein: In US custody since he was caught in 2004 Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been handed over to the Iraqi authorities ahead of his execution, his lawyers say they have been told. "The American side has notified us that they have handed over the president to the Iraqi authorities," lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said, quoted by Reuters. This follows intense speculation about the timing of the execution, with some reports that it is imminent. Neither the US or Iraqi authorities have confirmed the handover. The time and location of the hanging has...

...What really mattered was whether an Iraq freed from his death grip could hold him accountable in a way that nurtured hope for a better future. A carefully conducted, scrupulously fair trial could have helped undo some of the damage inflicted by his rule. It could have set a precedent for the rule of law in a country scarred by decades of arbitrary vindictiveness. It could have fostered a new national unity in an Iraq long manipulated through its religious and ethnic divisions. It could have, but it didn’t. After a flawed, politicized and divisive trial, Mr. Hussein was handed...

And so do we, by heck.

Since it now seems very imminent, I decided that it was an appropriate time to start this up. Links to information and pictures (if we get them) can be posted here.