Saddam Hussein dies on the gallows
A “before” view of the old Ritz Theater from the rear. “After” photos are coming soon. (Deuce Niven photo)
A “before” view of the old Ritz Theater from the rear. “After” photos are coming soon. (Deuce Niven photo)
In a final moment of defiance, he refused a hood to cover his eyes.
Hours after Saddam faced the same fate he was accused of inflicting on countless thousands during a quarter-century of ruthless power, Iraqi state TV showed grainy video of what it said was his body, the head uncovered and the neck twisted at a sharp angle.
A man whose testimony helped lead to Saddam?s conviction and execution before sunrise said he was shown the body because ?everybody wanted to make sure that he was really executed.?
?Now, he is in the garbage of history,? said Jawad Abdul-Aziz, who lost his father, three brothers and 22 cousins in the reprisal killings that followed a botched 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the Shiite town of Dujail.
The post-execution footage showed the man identified as Saddam lying on a stretcher, covered in a white shroud. His neck and part of the shroud have what appear to be bloodstains. His eyes are closed.
Al-Arabiya satellite TV reported Saturday night that a delegation including the governor of Salahuddin Province and the head of Saddam?s clan retrieved his body from Baghdad and took it for burial near the executed dictator?s hometown of Tikrit. The broadcaster reported the burial would take place Sunday. The report could not immediately be verified.
Earlier, in Baghdad?s Shiite enclave of Sadr City, hundreds of people danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to celebrate. Some hanged an effigy of Saddam. The government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was convicted to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence.
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.
The execution took place during the year?s deadliest month for U.S. troops, with the toll reaching 109. At least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
President Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice ?is an important milestone on Iraq?s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror.?
He said that the execution marks the ?end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops? and cautioned that Saddam’s death will not halt the violence in Iraq.
Within hours of his death, bombings killed at least 68 people in Iraq, including one planted on a minibus that exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad.
People in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his death.
?The president, the leader Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior,? said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque.
A couple hundred people also protested the execution just outside the Anbar capital of Ramadi, and more than 2,000 people demonstrated in Adwar, the village south of Tikrit where Saddam was captured by U.S. troops hiding in an underground bunker.
In a statement, Saddam’s lawyers said that in the aftermath of his death, ?the world will know that Saddam Hussein lived honestly, died honestly, and maintained his principles.?