The saga of Saddam's end—his capture, trial and execution—is a sad metaphor for America's occupation of Iraq. What might have gone right went so wrong. It is worth remembering that Saddam Hussein was not your run-of-the-mill dictator. He created one of the most brutal, corrupt and violent regimes in modern history, something akin to Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. Whatever the strategic wisdom for the United States, deposing him began as something unquestionably good for Iraq.
But soon the Bush administration dismissed the idea of trying Saddam under international law, or in a court with any broader legitimacy. This is the administration, after all, that could see little advantage to a United Nations mandate for its own invasion and occupation. It put Saddam's fate in the hands of the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite and Kurdish politicians who had been victims of his reign. As a result, Saddam's trial, which should have been the judgment of civilized society against a tyrant, is now seen by Iraq's Sunnis and much of the Arab world as a farce, reflecting only the victors' vengeance. ...
As if to make that point, the entire Saddam death video has now made the Internet, complete with the taunts and jeers of Shiite onlookers as Saddam is led to the gallows. The former dictator faces his final moments amid very telling cries, not of "long live Iraq!" ... but of "Moqtada al-Sadr!" ... the real power behind the Shiite Maliki government (despite its Sunni window dressing.) It's in Arabic, but according to translations (via CNN, mostly, but also here) the mostly Shia onlookers tell him to go to hell, he tells them to go to hell. They curse him, he recites verses from the Koran. Then they drop him and his neck snaps on impact. Watch for yourself:
The brutality of the video is unsettling, but I think must see viewing for all Americans who wish to understand the ways of war, and of vengeance. Saddam Hussein deserved to be put on trial for his crimes, deserved to have justice meted out upon him. But as with everything else we've done in Iraq, this version of "justice" will not stand up in the eyes of the wider Arab and Muslim world. It will look to them like a good ole' Texas lynching.
And that doesn't help keep our troops alive in Iraq.
Related: Amnesty International has issued a statement deploring the execution of Saddam Hussein. It reads in part:
"We oppose the death penalty in all cases as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, but it is especially abhorrent when this most extreme penalty is imposed after an unfair trial," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. "It is even more worrying that in this case, the execution appeared a foregone conclusion, once the original verdict was pronounced, with the Appeals Court providing little more than a veneer of legitimacy for what was, in fact, a fundamentally flawed process."
Amnesty International said it had greatly welcomed the decision to hold Saddam Hussein to account for the crimes committed under his rule but this should have been done through a fair process. "His trial should have been a major contribution towards establishing justice and ensuring truth and accountability for the massive human rights violations perpetrated when he was in power, but his trial was a deeply flawed affair" said Malcolm Smart. "It will be seen by many as nothing more than 'victor's justice' and, sadly, will do nothing to stem the unrelenting tide of political killings." ...
...At the time of his execution, Saddam Hussein was also standing trial before the SICT, together with six others, on separate charges arising from the so-called Anfal campaign, when thousands of people belonging to Iraq's Kurdish minority were subject to mass killings, torture and other gross abuses in 1988. It is expected that this trial will now continue against the other accused. The execution of Saddam Hussein is a major blow to the process of establishing the truth of what happened under his rule. and as such another squandered opportunity for Iraqis to find out about and come to terms with the crimes of the past.
Nicholas Kristoff of the NYT offers Dubya some advice, summarized nicely by the good folks at Raw Story:
Aside from replacing Cheney, characterized as "the single worst influence on your foreign policy, as well as the most polarizing figure in your administration," Kristof also advises the president to "seriously engage Iraq's nastier neighbors, including Iran and Syria, and renounce permanent military bases in Iraq"; to "start an intensive effort to bring peace to the Middle East"; to "confront the genocide in Darfur"; to "revive the theme of compassionate conservatism by extending your excellent five-year AIDS program"' to "address climate change"; to "put aside those thoughts of a military strike on Iranian nuclear sites, and make it clear to Israel that we oppose it conducting such an attack"; to "address our disgraceful inequities in health care"; and to "revive the reform proposals that President Clinton urged in 1999," rather than just "giving up" on Social Security. ...
... "Tenth, don't toss this newspaper to the floor and curse the press for your unpopularity," Kristof writes. "Instead, borrow from your playbook after you lost the New Hampshire primary in 2000 -- grit your teeth, retool and steal ideas from your critics and rivals."
John Edwards was good on Stephanopoulos today, and I think his biggest score (besides re-establishing his pretty ... particularly with that lip thing removed...) was naming the Bush-neocon strategy of escalating the war in Iraq not a "surge," as the White House calls it, but rather, the "McCain doctrine." Excellent pre-emptive strike on the probably Republican nominee, who is, after all, the heir apparent to Dubya. Way to stick him with Bush's Iraq policy.
Question: is any major event not fodder for the online left's complaints about the Administration of George W. Bush? They are, to be sure, by and large obsessive cultists in form and effect; but surely reason may kick in at points. One gets the impression of a class of people who wake up, drink their coffee, go to shave, cut themselves, and promptly curse the war in Iraq. The monomania simply does not end -- and the execution of Saddam Hussein is no different. I have already expressed my dislike for executions: but I also retain the bare capacity for rationality that allows me to understand the end of the dictator as a fundamental good.
The leftist "netroots"? Not so much.
Well I'm not sure if I qualify as a member of the left "netroots" -- but I will say that even as a staunch opponent of the death penalty, which I consider distasteful, draconian and uncivilized (not to mention a constant opponent of this awful, pathetically incompetent president,) I knew from the moment that U.S. troops pulled Saddam Hussein out of that spider hole that his execution was the only possible outcome (well, that or his being dragged by armed Shiite or Kurdish gunmen out of his American holding cell and murdered like a dog in the street... and even that would have probably ended with a hanging...)
For Shia and Kurdish Iraqis, who were so brutally victimized under a man who was for some, the only leader they have known, Saddam's death was perhaps a necessary catharsis. But I would caution Hugh and other Bush fans that catharsis for Iraqis was never, and still is not, the primary concern for Americans. Especially since catharsis for Iraqis has so far, not translated into good will for American troops, cooperation with the U.S. "mission" in Iraq, or an end to the violent civil war that is tearing that country apart while our guys are stuck in the middle.
What is of primary concern is American foreign policy, and whether those policies, undertaken by our elected leadership, are in the best interests of the United States. I would argue that Saddam's hanging advances U.S. interests not one whit, and it wasn't even a stated goal in the war (Bush, after all, on March 18, 2003 offered to allow him to leave Iraq alive with his sons and surrender the country, and its oil wealth, to us, which supposedly would have avoided war altogether...)
Iraqi catharsis isn't even likely to reduce the rampant and seemingly bottomless violence and sectarian bloodletting that is of primary concern to American troops and taxpayers, who are paying, in very different ways, for a policy that has already proven to be bereft of benefit for America. (December is now officially the deadliest month for U.S. troops this year.) Iraq posed no military threat to us, so toppling Saddam and taking over his country didn't protect us from attack (I won't even mention the nuclear piece, which has long since been rendered ridiculous.) He had no ties to terrorists, except possibly the Mujeheddin e-Kalq, an anti-Iranian terror group that members of Congress favor, so deposing Saddam and having him summarily executed doesn't protect us from terrorism.
The only possible benefit to the U.S. of Saddam's death will be the fact that members of the U.S. military will no longer have to guard him inside Iraq, something that posed a constant security threat to American troops, given the number of Iraqis who likely wanted to find and kill him. Of course, much the same thing could have been accomplished by exiling the man. And perhaps the hanging will strengthen the unelected fourth prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who even Washington doubts can control the country. But since the U.S. has been sending signals that it may be shopping for replacement, strengthening Maliki -- and by extension, his backers, like Moqtada al-Sadr, whose father was executed by Saddam -- may be counterproductive for us... emphasis on for us... (recall that the U.S. had been cuddling up to a possible Maliki replacement, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of something called SCIRI -- the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq , until of course, we went and grabbed a couple of Iranian diplomats and accused them of planning terror attacks ... needless to say, we've since let them go...)
To sum it up, I don't believe that Saddam's death advances U.S. interests, and therefore I see no reason to except my general opposition to the death penalty in this case. At the same time, I understand that for Iraqis, if not for us, this was something that was probably inevitable, and in many ways, very much understandable, from their point of view. How that helps our cause in Iraq -- whatever in Gods name that cause is, at this point -- I sure as hell don't know.
So is Saddam's death a "fundamental good" as Hewitt (who also appears to oppose the death penalty) asserts? I don't think that you can credibly argue that it is. It's fundamentally cathartic for many Iraqis, Iranians and Kuwaitis, it puts the coda on a brutal and terrifying chapter of Iraqi history, and in that it probably won't abate, and could worsen, sectarian violence in Iraq, it is either a net irrelevancy, or a net negative, from a policy standpoint, to the American people.
The American military — once a staunch supporter of President Bush and the Iraq war — has grown in creasingly pessimistic about chances for victory.
For the first time, more troops disapprove of the president’s han dling of the war than approve of it. Barely one-third of service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, ac cording to the 2006 Military Times Poll.
When the military was feeling most optimistic about the war — in 2004 — 83 percent of poll re spondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50 percent.
Only 35 percent of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved. The president’s approval rating among the military is only slight ly higher than for the population as a whole. In 2004, when his popularity peaked, 63 percent of the military approved of Bush’s handling of the war. While ap proval of the president’s war lead ership has slumped, his overall approval remains high among the military.
Just as telling, in this year’s poll only 41 percent of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65 percent in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population today — 45 percent agreed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.
Another interesting bit of info from the article, two thirds of those surveyed in the poll have been deployed to Iraq at least once. But in the overall active duty force, an incredible 72 percent of U.S. military personnel have been deployed at least once to Iraq. Bush's approval rating among the military remains relatively high, at 52 percent according to this poll, but that's down sharply from 71 percent in 2004. And then there's this:
While Bush fared well overall, his political party didn’t. In the three previous polls, nearly 60 percent of the respondents identi fied themselves as Republicans, which is about double the popula tion as a whole. But in this year’s poll, only 46 percent of the mili tary respondents said they were Republicans. However, there was not a big gain in those identifying themselves as Democrats — a fig ure that consistently hovers around 16 percent. The big gain came among people who said they were independents.
Similarly, when asked to de scribe their political views on a scale from very conservative to very liberal, there was a slight shift from the conservative end of the spectrum to the middle or moderate range. Liberals within the military are still a rare breed, with less than 10 percent of re spondents describing themselves that way.
Interesting. How did the media fare?
The poll asked, “How do you think each of these groups view the military?” Respondents over whelmingly said civilians have a favorable impression of the mili tary (86 percent). They even thought politicians look favorably on the military (57 percent). But they are convinced the media hate them — only 39 percent of mili tary respondents said they think the media have a favorable view of the troops.
Ouch! And what about the leadership in Washington?
The poll also asked if the senior military leadership, President Bush, civilian military leadership and Congress have their best in terests at heart.
Almost two-thirds (63 percent) of those surveyed said the senior military leadership has the best interests of the troops at heart. And though they don’t think much of the way he’s handling the war, 48 percent said the same about President Bush. But they take a dim view of civilian military lead ership — only 32 percent said they think it has their best inter ests at heart. And only 23 percent think Congress is looking out for them.
Actually, I think the fact that fewer than half of respondents thought the president has their best interests at heart is shocking, while the Congressional number isn't really surprising, given the clear fact that it's the military contractors the 109th Congress showed the greatest concern for over...
With Saddam executed following a U.S. invasion, it's easy to look rather simplistically at Iraq and the U.S. as enemies. That, of course, is far too simplistic. From the Research Unit for Political Economy:
In 1979, Saddam, already effectively the leader of Iraq, became president and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. The entire region stood at a critical juncture.
For one, the pillar of the US in West Asia, viz, the Pahlavi monarchy in Iran, was overthrown by a massive popular upsurge which the US was powerless to suppress. This made the US and its client states deeply anxious at the prospect of similar developments taking place throughout the region.
For another, in Iraq Saddam had drawn on the country’s oil wealth to carry out a major military build-up, with military expenditures swallowing 8.4 per cent of GNP in 1979. Starting in 1958 Iraq had become an increasingly important market for sophisticated Soviet weapons, and was considered a member of the Soviet camp. In 1972 Iraq signed a 15-year friendship, cooperation and military agreement with the USSR. The Iraqi regime was striving to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. Apart from Israel, the only army in the region to rival Iraq’s was Iran’s. But after 1979, when the Shah of Iran was overthrown, much of the Iranian army’s American equipment became inoperable.
The Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980 (on the pretext of resolving border disputes) thus solved two major problems for the US. Over the course of the following decade two of the region’s leading military powers, neither of them hitherto friendly to the US, were tied up in an exhausting conflict with each other. Such conflicts among third world countries create a host of opportunities for imperialist powers to seek new footholds, as happened also in this instance.
... Despite its strong ties to the USSR, Iraq turned to the west for support in the war with Iran. This it received massively. As Saddam Hussein later revealed, the US and Iraq decided to re-establish diplomatic relations—broken off after the 1967 war with Israel—just before Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 (the actual implementation was delayed for a few more years in order not to make the linkage too explicit). Diplomatic relations between the US and Iraq were formally restored in 1984—well after the US knew, and a UN team confirmed, that Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranian troops. (The emissary sent by US president Reagan to negotiate the arrangements was none other than the present US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.) In 1982, the US State Department removed Iraq from its list of “state sponsors of terrorism”, and fought off efforts by the US Congress to put it back on the list in 1985. Most crucially, the US blocked condemnation of Iraq’s chemical attacks in the UN Security Council. The US was the sole country to vote against a 1986 Security Council statement condemning Iraq’s use of mustard gas against Iranian troops — an atrocity in which it now emerges the US was directly implicated (as we shall see below).
Brisk trade was done in supplying Iraq. Britain joined France as a major source of weapons for it. Iraq imported uranium from Portugal, France and Italy, and began constructing centrifuge enrichment facilities with German assistance. The US arranged massive loans for Iraq’s burgeoning war expenditure from American client states such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The US administration provided “crop-spraying” helicopters (to be used for chemical attacks in 1988), let Dow Chemicals ship it chemicals for use on humans, seconded its air force officers to work with their Iraqi counterparts (from 1986), approved technological exports to Iraq’s missile procurement agency to extend the missiles’ range (1988). In October 1987 and April 1988 US forces themselves attacked Iranian ships and oil platforms.
Militarily, the US not only provided to Iraq satellite data and information about Iranian military movements, but, as former US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) officers have recently revealed to the New York Times (18/8/02), prepared detailed battle planning for Iraqi forces in this period—even as Iraq drew worldwide public condemnation for its repeated use of chemical weapons against Iran. According to a senior DIA official, “if Iraq had gone down it would have had a catastrophic effect on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the whole region might have gone down [ie, slipped from US control—Aspects] —that was the backdrop of the policy.” ...
When Saddam Hussein looked in disbelief at the over-sized noose that was fitted by masked volunteers around his neck, the man who helped to put it there by invading Iraq and toppling the dictator was soundly asleep at his ranch in Texas.
It was only nine o'clock in the evening in Crawford but George Bush was already embedded in the land of nod, with orders not to be woken until the morning.
The blithe indifference of deep slumber was the final snub to the dead man who once described himself as "Salahadin II", "the Redeemer of all the Arabs" and "the Lion of Baghdad".
Some might think that George Bush can't afford to sleep soundly these days with his approval ratings in the cellar and his policy towards Iraq in inertia.
But while the world stirred to comment, cyberspace buzzed with applause or condemnation and Cable television hyperventilated, George Bush soldiered on in sleep. He arose only at 4.40am, we are told, which is his usual time of rising.
One hour later he had a 10-minute conversation with his National Security adviser Stephen Hadley about the events in Baghdad. ...
...On one level, the hanging of Saddam Hussein is the end of a dramatic family saga that has pitted the Bushes of Texas against the Husseins of Tikrit.
It is a saga that started with a tacit alliance.
When George HW Bush was vice president, Saddam Hussein was still seen as a potential partner thanks to his status as the enemy of America's enemy, Iran.
It was in 1983 that Donald Rumsfeld was dispatched to Baghdad as a friend of the Reagan administration to shake the hand of Saddam Hussein and offer America's help against the ayatollahs during the Iran Iraq War.
Alliance finally turned into animosity when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and President Bush cobbled together an international alliance of Western and Arab states to remove him from Kuwait but not from power.
"The butcher of Baghdad" began to call President Bush "the viper" and George junior, "the son of the viper".
It was at that time that the famous Al Rashid hotel in Baghdad received an elaborate mosaic of President Bush "the criminal", which patrons were forced to stomp across on entering the lobby.
Two years later Saddam Hussein tried to get President Bush assassinated.
The White House has always maintained that personal grudges had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq.
And yet in September 2002, as preparations for war were well under way, George Bush the younger told a Houston fundraiser: "This is after all the man who tried to kill my dad." ...
...The personal side of this bitter family saga is over.
But even from his unmarked grave, Saddam Hussein will continue to haunt the Bush administration and define the legacy of the 43rd president of the United States.
Saddam had always promised to lure, fight and defeat the Americans in the cities of Iraq.
No-one thought at the time that this would happen after he had already been deposed.
But his prophetic threat is becoming reality, triggering a multi-headed insurgence that no longer fights on his behalf, and a vortex of sectarian violence that makes a conventional civil war look organised and coherent.
Funny that Saddam Hussein was rushed to the gallows to be hanged for the killing of 148 Shiites at Dujail in 1982, following an uprising and assassination attempt there earlier that year, an act which effectively cut off the opportunity to try him for far bloodier events: the bloodletting during the Iran-Iraq war (after Iraq invaded its neighbor in 1980), and the gassing of tens of thousands of Kurds at Halabja during the 1980s, as part of the notorious Anfal campaign, which involved the serial slaughter of something like 180,000 Kurds in 1987 and 1988. From Deutsche Presse-Agentur:
Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid (known as Chemical Ali) were charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The other defendants were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Hearings in the Anfal case continued after the verdict in the Dujail case was announced in November, with the last session of the trial taking place on December 6.
Both the Anfal campaign and the Halabja massacre were among the seven preliminary charges listed at Saddam's first court appearance on July 1, 2004.
The other charges, which were initially expected to form the bases of subsequent trials included the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the crushing of the Kurdish and Shia rebellions in 1991 after the first Gulf War, the killing of thousands of political opponents over a 30- year period, the disappearance of 8,000 members of the Barzani Kurdish clan in 1983, and the execution of five Shiite religious leaders in 1974.
People close to former foreign minister Tariq Aziz had said Aziz planned to testify on Saddam's behalf at the Anfal trial, which was to be next, and that disclosures in that trial would have been, shall we say, revelatory about the involvement of foreign governments, including the United States, in supplying chemical munitions to Iraq. (That's why the saying goes, we know Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s, because we have the receipts...)
Killing Saddam has elated Saddam's enemies in Iran, and the Shia and Kurds in Iraq (and Dearborn, Michigan,) but it hasn't answered some of the salient questions about his rule, and about U.S. involvement in propping him up over the years (including arming both sides during the Iran-Iraq war.) And it has denied answers and justice to far more people, including, ironically, the same Shiites and Kurds who are dancing in the streets today. Funny that.
"The execution of Saddam Hussein was a victory for the Iraqi people and no other country should take credit for that," Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid-Reza told IRNA in a first reaction by Tehran to the execution.
Assefi however criticised the swift execution and speculated that the United States preferred to avoid disclosure of more details in the court hearings.
"Investigation into the Iraqi invasion in Iran (1980-1988) and in Kuwait (1990) could have disclosed the US involvement in Saddam's crimes and therefore the Americans preferred to close the case earlier," the Iranian official said.
CNN and other news outlets have posted video of the lead-up to the Saddam execution, and of his body covered partially by a body bag, such that you can see his distorted head position and broken neck.
The preamble video shows Saddam waving off the black hood that would have covered his face, and the hangman's noose being placed around his neck as he steps onto the platform that will be dropped out from under him, breaking his neck as he falls (we in the States are far too delicate to watch that video, of course...) and Newsweek has an exclusive interview with the man hired to videotape Saddam's end. A clip:
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 the gallows, according to Ali, "Saddam said, ‘Iraq without me is nothing.’"
Ali said Saddam showed no remorse, but that he could see in his eyes that he was afraid. The cameraman went on to describe the execution:
Ali says he followed Saddam up the gallows steps, escorted by two guards. He stood over the hole and filmed from close quarters as Saddam dropped through—from "me to you," he said, crouching down to show how he shot the scene. The distance, he said, was "about one meter," he said. "He died absolutely, he died instantly." Ali said Saddam's body twitched, "shaking, very shaking," but "no blood," he said, and "no spit." (Ali said he was not authorized to disclose the location, and did not give other details of the room.)
Ali said the videotape lasts about 15 minutes. When NEWSWEEK asked to see a copy, Ali said he had already handed the tape over to Maliki's chief of staff. "It is top secret," he said. He would not give the names of officials in attendance, though he estimates there were around 20 observers. One of them, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, told CNN that Saddam clasped a Koran as the noose was tied around his neck, and refused to wear a hood. He also said that government officials had not decided whether or not to release the videotape. The execution reportedly took place at 6:05 a.m. local time. Prime Minister Maliki did not attend.
The article goes on to describe how Ali, unlike the U.S., was greeted as a liberator upon returning to the Green Zone.
Our man Bushie apparently went to bed at his normal nappie-time and so missed the execution coverage. I'm sure Karl had it Tivo'd for him:
Spokesman Scott Stanzel said the president was told of the impending hanging Friday afternoon and went to bed shortly before it took place, with instructions not to be woken up.
The White House issued a statement ostemsibly from his subconscious...
The reaction around the Arab world has been mixed, a blend of silence and anger, particularly with the execution coming on the highest day of Ramadan for Sunnis (the Shias place the high mark a day later.) From the BBC:
For many ordinary people in the Arab world, Saddam Hussein was admired if not particularly loved.
He was an active and strident supporter of the Palestinian cause and many regarded him as a strong leader who dared to defy both America and Israel. Images of the former leader having the noose pulled around his neck will shock many.
Libya has declared three days of national mourning.
Lawmakers and members of the militant Palestinian group, Hamas, have condemned the execution, with one calling it "a political assassination" that "violated international laws".
Interesting about our new friend, Libya, eh?
Opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq was almost unanimous in the region. So perhaps it was no surprise that his trial was also regarded as unfair, as an exercise in 'victor's justice'.
Many Arab governments and people saw the legal process as instigated and controlled by Washington.
Despite the insistence that the trial, verdict and now execution was a purely Iraqi affair, few in the Middle East will believe that.
Saudi Arabia said it was surprised and dismayed at the timing of the execution on the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid al-adha. There was also criticism at how quickly the trial was over amid accusations it had been politicised.
But for those who crossed swords with Saddam, his execution is welcome news.
Iran fought a long and bloody war with Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of people on both sides. The country's deputy foreign minister called it a "victory for Iraqis". Hamid Reza Asefi predicted it would lead to more violence in the short-term, but would ultimately benefit the country.
But the response from Kuwait, a country Saddam invaded in 1990, was more muted. The state-owned news agency reported the only official reaction which was that this was "a matter for Iraqis".
Most other governments in the region have remained completely silent. To be fair, this is the first day of Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday in the Islamic calendar. Even so, it seems many have chosen not to step onto what is widely regarded as extremely delicate territory. ...
"The government told us to send provincial representatives, including the governor or his deputy and the leader of Saddam's tribe to the burial of executed Saddam," Abdullah Jabara, deputy governor of Salahudin province told Xinhua by telephone.
"I answered that we will not go to Baghdad unless they agree to give us his body to hold a suitable funeral for him and bury him in Uwja village beside his sons Uday and Qusay," Jabara said. ...
... Meanwhile, Jabara said that the city of Tikrit, capital city of Salahudin province, was under curfew and security forces intensified patrols.
However, security measures did not prevent people in many cities of Salahudin province from taking to the streets and protesting Saddam's execution. ...
...The demonstrators raised posters of Saddam Hussein and angrily chanted slogans slamming the execution of the ousted leader.
"This is an unjust and aggressive act toward many Iraqis," Muhammad Tawfiq, a demonstrator, told Xinhua.
"The execution itself on the first day of Eid al-Adha is a violation of rights of millions of Iraqi Sunnis," Tawfiq said, adding that "this is an insult at Sunnis. We condemned this cowered act."
Meanwhile, the U.S. quietly frees those two Iranians it had been holding in Iraq under questionable circumstances...
And the U.S. death toll in Iraq is now just two shy of 3,000 (though given the Pentagon's practice of slowing up the casualty count, it's probably already passed the mark.)
Related: From the BBC, a Timeline of Saddam's rise and fall, and a retrospective that pretty much sums up Saddam's legacy: "hated by many, mourned by few."
CNN is reporting, based on news reports in Arab media, that Saddam Hussein was hanged shortly after 10 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time. At this point the reports are unconfirmed, but Iraqi TV is reportedly broadcasting that information to the citizens there. I guess Bush won't get his State of the Union split screen after all...
Although the U.S. has taken pains to distance itself from the event, so that it doesn't look like it's being carried out by mere viceroys (good luck convincing the Muslim world of that...) there was a bizarre twist at the last minute, with Hussein's lawyers appealing in U.S. district court to try and stay the handover of the former dictator from U.S. to Iraqi custody. There's a lot of rich irony in this paragraph from a Bloomberg account:
Gilman told the judge that Hussein is petitioning for a writ of habeas corpus to force the U.S. government to let him argue that his rights are being violated.
I guess Hussein's lawyers didn't realize that in the Bush era, the U.S. doesn't do habeas corpus ... sort of like a certain dictator we know...
10:33 update: CNN now reporting that Iraqi state run TV is confirming that Hussein is dead. His half-brother and intelligence chief Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, who was chairman of the Revolutionary Court that ordered 148 Shiite villagers in the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad in 1982, after an assassination attempt there, also are (or already have been) on the gallows. I can't help but wonder if it's significant that Hussein was hanged on the day of the high point of the Muslim Hajj (he wasn't exactly a model Muslim, though not surprisingly, he seemed to find religion at the end...)
True to form for our violent little duchy in the desert, Iraqi state run television couldn't even get the scoop on the Hussein execution -- that honor went to U.S.-run al-Hurrah TV, the Bush administration, and outfits like CNN (which broke the story first.) The BBC concurs that the U.S. trying to portray this as a purely Iraqi event, but it appears that story isn't going to be quite believable. More on that and reax from London here. This reaction is typical:
Kamil Mahdi, Iraqi expatriate, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter university
Quite honestly, I don't think much of it any more, given what's happening in Iraq. It will be taken as an American decision. The worst thing is that it's an issue which, in an ideal situation, should have unified Iraq but the Americans have succeeded in dividing the Iraqis.
Iraqi Shiites and Kurds will no doubt rejoice at the execution of their tormentor, who ran Iraq like his own private fear factory. Sunni reaction, both in Iraq, and around the world, remains to be seen.
...so, by the way, does the videotape. And I suppose Dubya will make some sort of sober sounding statement, as soon as he and Laura and the puppies are through hiding in the armored car from that tornado alert in Texas... (ahem) But will Bush benefit from Saddam's offing? signs point to no, according to John Zogby and other analysts, unless Iraq is somehow magically pacified, stat.
Saddam Hussein's death appears to be imminent and that his death by hanging will likely be videotaped. In fact, the U.S. may hand the former Iraqi dictator over to Iraqis as early as today. Assuming he survives long enough to make it to the gallows, the execution could take place in days, weeks, or maybe on Dubya's State of the Union speech day!
Ford, Nixon were BFFs... And Ford's pardon of Nixon may not have been the bald escape from justice that some have judged it to be:
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 — President Gerald R. Ford was never one for second-guessing, but for many years after leaving office in 1977, he carried in his wallet a scrap of a 1915 Supreme Court ruling. A pardon, the excerpt said, “carries an imputation of guilt,” and acceptance of a pardon is “a confession of it.”
Mr. Ford’s decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he might have been charged with because of Watergate is seen by many historians as the central event of his 896-day presidency. It also appears to have left him with an uncharacteristic need for self-justification, though friends say he never wavered in his insistence that the pardon was a wise and necessary act and that it had not resulted from any secret deal with his disgraced predecessor.
“I must have talked to him 20 times about the pardon, and there was never a shred of doubt that he’d done the right thing,” said James Cannon, a Ford domestic policy adviser and author of a 1994 book about his presidency. During one of their discussions, Mr. Ford pulled out the 1915 clipping, from Burdick v. United States. “It was a comfort to him,” Mr. Cannon said. “It was legal justification that he was right.”
Over the last three decades, as emotions have cooled, many who were initially critical of the pardon have come to share Mr. Ford’s judgment that it was the best way to stanch the open wound of Watergate. In 2001, a bipartisan panel selected Mr. Ford as recipient of the Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Library, singling out for praise his pardon decision, which Mr. Ford later said he believed was a major factor in his failure to win election to the presidency in 1976.
In a 2004 interview with Bob Woodward, reported Thursday night on The Washington Post’s Web site, Mr. Ford offered another, less lofty motive for the pardon: his friendship with Nixon, which lasted for two decades after the pardon and which letters show was closer than publicly understood.
“I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon,” Mr. Ford told Mr. Woodward, “because I felt that we had this relationship and that I didn’t want to see my real friend have the stigma.”
Few dramas in American political history remain more riveting than that of Nixon’s exit and Mr. Ford’s reaction, at first halting and then decisive, to the looming possibility of a former president on criminal trial for months on end.
“At the time, I thought this was going to cause a problem with the public and the press, and of course it did,” said Robert T. Hartmann, a former Ford aide. “I thought he was right. But it’s also important to be seen as right and remembered in history as having done the right thing.”
Meanwhile, here's an interesting picture, from the Times today:
Gerald Ford disagreed with President Bush's decisions regarding Iraq. He told Bob Woodward, but had Woodward pledge not to reveal the information until after his death. Before he died Ford had expressed support for Bush's war.
The hanging of Saddam Hussein (pictured above with his good friend, Don Rumsfeld,) perhaps in days or weeks, or maybe to coincide with a certain State of the Union address... will accomplish three things:
1. It will satiate some of the Iraqi Kurdish and Shiite thirst for revenge ... 2, It will harden the Sunni insurgency and further divide Iraqis from one another ... 3. It will make a martyr of Saddam among his Ba'athist and other Sunni supporters ... and that includes al-Qaida types, who like Saddam, are Sunnis.
Already Ba'athists are threatening to retaliate. Iraqis are lining up to apply for the job of hangman, and Saddam is filling out his martyrdom papers and writing a letter, telling Iraqis to unite, but not to hate the infidels, for they know not what their leaders do. He must have had a P.R. coach...
Meanwhile, remembering what the dictator was convicted of, courtesy of the BBC:
The American journalist Bob Woodward, in his third book about the Bush administration at war, State of Denial, relates a story told by Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, who was the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States.
Prince Bandar recalls a conversation that Saddam Hussein had with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia after a group of extremists took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979.
The rebels had been caught and thrown into jail, and this was the Iraqi leader's advice: "In my mind, there is no question that you are going to kill all 500, that's a given.
"Listen to me carefully, Fahd. Every man who in this group who has a brother or father - kill them. If they have a cousin who you think is man enough to go for revenge, kill them.
"Those 500 people are a given. But you must spread the fear of God in everything that belongs to them, and that's the only way you can sleep at night."
That seems to have been the tactic that Saddam Hussein used at Dujail in 1982, when - after an attempt to assassinate him - 148 people were killed. It is the crime for which he has been sentenced to hang.
Perhaps Saddam Hussein will accept his fate on the gallows as an occupational hazard of being a despot. Or maybe he never intended his own rules to apply to himself.
Gerald Ford has died at 93 years of age. He was the longest living ex-president, and the only president to serve, never having been elected (Bush's 2000 "election" notwithstanding...) Whatever the hallmarks of his tenure (those images of the last choppers rising away from a desperate Saigon as Ford brought an end to the tragic Vietnam war, the Helsinki accords, surviving not one, but two assassination attempts -- ironic as he was a member of the Warren Commission -- being the first "Saturday Night Live" president, and making Chevy Chase a star, and his being among the last of a dying breed of relatively moderate Republicans. ... oh an add one more: Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens ... may he live to torment the wackadoo right for many years to come... and yeah, gifting the world with the public careers George H.W. Bush, his CIA director, Don Rumsfeld, his SecDef, and ... yeesh ... then Chief of Staff Dick Cheney...) he will forever be known for his most controversial decision: the "full, free and absolute pardon" of Richard M. Nixon on September 8, 1974, avoiding what could have been a savage and ugly court battle. (read the full text of the pardon without commentary here.)
Ford defended the pardon to the end, and many historians agree with him, that like Lincoln after the Civil War, Ford chose the path of national healing. After Watergate, Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, the civil rights struggles and more, America was an exhausted, beaten down, angry nation, desperately in need of healing. And Gerald Ford was the healer in chief. Maybe the historians have a point, though the questions, about whether there were back-room deals with Alexander Haig, or with party leaders, or with Nixon himself, will always linger over the pardon, along with the unrequited yearning for Nixon's confession of guilt (he claimed until the end, to have been impeached because he "lost political support...")
Although, there is something to the argument that Nixon should have been made to answer for his crimes, and give the country their catharsis that way. But given how bitterly divided we were then, and the 30 year outgrowth of partisan hatred and retribution that followed the pardon (including the "revenge impeachment" of Bill Clinton by hysterical, ultra-partisan Republicans in Congress), imagine the civil war that would have erupted between Democrats and Republicans had Nixon been clapped in irons. (More on Ford's "fast, clean start" here)
You knew there was going to be some big drama in the wake of James Brown's death, as if passing away on Christmas Day after breathing "I'm going away now" in a hospital bed, following a diagnosis of walking pneumonia at the dentist's office wasn't dramatic enough... So here it is:
James Brown had a girl right up until the end of his life. His children from previous unions and their attorney have allegedly locked the woman, backup dancer Tomi Rae Hynie, out of the home she shared with The Godfather of Soul and their five year old child.
Padlocked, that is...
Brown's lawyer Buddy Dallas told The Associated Press. "I have not even been in the house, nor will I until appropriate protocol is followed." He also stated on Tuesday that the late singer and Tomi Rae were not legally married and that she was locked out of his South Carolina home for estate legal reasons.
Apparently Tomi Rae Hynie was already married to a Texas man in 2001 when she married Brown according to the attorney, making her marriage to Brown illegal, attorney Dallas said. He said Hynie later annulled the previous marriage, but she and Brown never remarried.
Doh!
"I suppose it would mean she was, from time to time, a guest in Mr. Brown's home," Dallas said.
On Monday, the 73-year-old Brown died at an Atlanta hospital, and Hynie, 36, discovered that the gates to their Beech Island, S.C., home was padlocked. Hynie claims to have a legal right to live in the home with the couple's 5-year-old son.
"This is my home," Hynie told a reporter outside the house. "I don't have any money. I don't have anywhere to go."
Attorney Dallas stated to the AP that Brown's estate was left in trust for his children. No further word was revealed on how the property was to be diviided.
However, there were strong indications it would not be divided with Ms. Hynie...
Dallas said Brown and Hynie had not seen each other for several weeks before his death. ...
(Sigh.) I'll tell ya there's no scorn like the scorn of the previous baby's mama's kids... Now, other news reports have said that Brown and Hynie split in 2003, taking out a very public ad saying so, and then supposedly remarried in 2004 (or planned to...) but this article throws that into question. And then there's this, from another wire service story:
Dallas said legal formalities need to be followed now, adding that Brown's estate was left in trust for his children. He declined to elaborate on Brown's final instructions.
“It's not intended and I hope not interpreted to be an act of unkindness or an act of a lack of sympathy,” Dallas said. “Ms. Hynie has a home a few blocks away from Mr. Brown's home where she resides periodically when she is not with Mr. Brown. She is not without housing or home.”
So which is it? Does she have nowhere to go or doesn't she? Curious. BTW the AP story above refers to Ms. Hynie as Brown's "partner" -- maybe it's a Cali thing. The first fire story, via Monsters and Critics, calls her his "common law wife."
Anyway, on a different note, here's the reax from Rev. Al Sharpton, who cited Brown as a semial influence.
Saving Boston from a riot after Martin Luther King's assassination...
Creating modern funk music...
Influencing generations of musicians, from rock, to soul to hip-hop...
Being a crucial part of the civil rights movement, along with the likes of Marvin Gaye, Mohammad Ali and other entertainment and sports icons who made African-Americans feel proud and embrace possibilities they could only have imagined before...
I was born right at the cusp of the 1970s. When I was a little kid, my mom had the big afro, loved Ali and taught us that Malcolm X was just as important as Dr. King. She loved Sammy Davis Jr. and Harry Belafonte and the late Nat King Cole and other Black entertainers who portrayed strength and pride in being who you are. Black is beautiful was just catching on. It's hard to believe that Blacks never embraced such a thing in our popular culture before that time. Bussing was just starting, and many Black kids were under daily assault by white kids and their parents, who didn't want them around (my older sister included.) Life was just about to change for Black America -- we were launching the new, take no bull-shit era of African-American history, and James Brown was a big part of that.
But I guess everyone gets tired. So rest yourself, Godfather. We'll do the feeling good for you.
Pushing for war witn Iran? And more chaos in Basra
If that was your goal, how about detaining a handful of Iranians inside Iraq and positing nebulous charges that they were "planning attacks against Iraqi security forces"? Then, since you're already bungling the damned war, how about detaining the Iranians in the compound of the very party you're trying to boost as the new Shiite leadership of a coalition government, embarrassing the current Shiite Prime Minister in the process?
It's like a neocon cluster-f*** from hell. From the Sunday NYT:
BAGHDAD, Dec. 24 — The American military is holding at least four Iranians in Iraq, including men the Bush administration called senior military officials, who were seized in a pair of raids late last week aimed at people suspected of conducting attacks on Iraqi security forces, according to senior Iraqi and American officials in Baghdad and Washington.
The Bush administration made no public announcement of the politically delicate seizure of the Iranians, though in response to specific questions the White House confirmed Sunday that the Iranians were in custody.
Gordon D. Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said two Iranian diplomats were among those initially detained in the raids. The two had papers showing that they were accredited to work in Iraq, and he said they were turned over to the Iraqi authorities and released. He confirmed that a group of other Iranians, including the military officials, remained in custody while an investigation continued, and he said, “We continue to work with the government of Iraq on the status of the detainees.”
It was unclear what kind of evidence American officials possessed that the Iranians were planning attacks, and the officials would not identify those being held. One official said that “a lot of material” was seized in the raid, but would not say if it included arms or documents that pointed to planning for attacks. Much of the material was still being examined, the official said.
Nonetheless, the two raids, in central Baghdad, have deeply upset Iraqi government officials, who have been making strenuous efforts to engage Iran on matters of security. At least two of the Iranians were in this country on an invitation extended by Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, during a visit to Tehran earlier this month. It was particularly awkward for the Iraqis that one of the raids took place in the Baghdad compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders, who traveled to Washington three weeks ago to meet President Bush.
So what exactly is the evidence, or will these guys be simply declared "enemy combatants" and shipped off to one of our secret prisons, or dare I say for interrogation in Syria, like we did before Syria became country non grata?
A bit more:
A senior Western official in Baghdad said the raids were conducted after American officials received information that the people detained had been involved in attacks on official security forces in Iraq. “We conduct operations against those who threaten Iraqi and coalition forces,” the official said. “This was based on information.”
A spokesman for Mr. Hakim, who heads a Shiite political party called Sciri, which began as an exile group in Iran that opposed Saddam Hussein, declined to comment. In Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, had no comment about the case on Sunday other than to say it was under examination.
The action comes at a moment of extraordinary tension in the three-way relationship between the United States, Iran and Iraq. On Saturday, even as American officials were trying to determine the identity of some of the Iranians, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution imposing mild sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has rejected pressure to open talks with Iran about its actions in Iraq.
Much about the raids and the identities of the Iranians remained unclear on Sunday. American officials offered few details. They said that an investigation was under way and that they wanted to give the Iraqi government time to figure out its position. A Bush administration official said the Iranian military officials held in custody were suspected of being members of the Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. It has been involved in training members of Hezbollah and other groups that the Americans regard as terrorist organizations.
American and Iraqi officials have long accused Iran of interfering in this country’s internal affairs, but have rarely produced evidence. The administration presented last week’s arrests as a potential confirmation of the link. Mr. Johndroe said, “We suspect this event validates our claims about Iranian meddling, but we want to finish our investigation of the detained Iranians before characterizing their activities.”
Hm. So guys, are we shoring up Mr. Hakim or accusing him? Do go on, Grey Lady:
The raids and arrests were confirmed by at least seven officials and politicians in Baghdad and Washington. Still, the development was being viewed skeptically on Sunday by some Iraqis, who said that they suspected that the timing was intended to reinforce arguments by some in the administration that direct talks with Iran would be futile.
And I'd say they're probably correct...
The United States is now holding, apparently for the first time, Iranians who it suspects of planning attacks. One senior administration official said, “This is going to be a tense but clarifying moment.”
“It’s our position that the Iraqis have to seize this opportunity to sort out with the Iranians just what kind of behavior they are going to tolerate,” the official said, declining to speak on the record because the details of the raid and investigation were not yet public. “They are going to have to confront the evidence that the Iranians are deeply involved in some of the acts of violence.”
Clarifying, indeed. More about "Sciri":
The predawn raid on Mr. Hakim’s compound, on the east side of the Tigris, was perhaps the most startling part of the American operation. The arrests were made inside the house of Hadi al-Ameri, the chairman of the Iraqi Parliament’s security committee and leader of the Badr Organization, the armed wing of Mr. Hakim’s political party.
Many Shiite political groups are now suspected of having ties to Iran, and Sciri is no exception. Senior party leaders lived in exile in Iran for years plotting the overthrow of Mr. Hussein. Some married Iranians and raised their children there.
Mr. Hakim has emerged as the central Iraqi Shiite who is backing a new bloc made up of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds that would isolate more radical politicians. Americans back the new bloc, and Mr. Hakim traveled to Washington earlier this month to discuss its formation with Mr. Bush. It was not clear how the arrests, embarrassing to Mr. Hakim, would affect those political efforts.
Hiwa Osman, a news media adviser to Mr. Talabani, said, “The president is unhappy with the arrests.”
To understand this, you have to remember that during the time of Saddam, opposition groups were as likely to be based in Tehran as in London, with Shiite groups becoming closely aligned with the Iranians (as we ourselves have been from time to time.) It would follow that Mr. Hakim -- not unlike Grand Ayatola Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric, and perhaps the most powerful man, in Iraq -- is closely aligned with Iran (Sistani was born there, though to my knowledge, he is not a Persian.) One last bite before I'm through:
The disagreement will further irritate relations between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq and his American supporters. The Shiite-led government has begun to chafe under the control of the Americans, pressing for more control of its army and for greater independence from what it says is unilateral American decision making.
And what could this sudden burst of independence by Mr. Maliki signal? If the U.S. is seeking to isolate him, and perhaps to replace him, with Mr. Hakim, then why piss off Mr. Hakim by arresting Iranians who may have been his allies? It makes about as much sense as, well, invading Iraq. What is clear is that on the same weekend when meek-ish sanctions were passed by the UNSC against Iran, this little diplomatic raid won't do a thing to ease tensions, but it could provide our neocon president with a fresh reason to push for war with Iran.
Now to the British, who are doing some pissing off of their own. Writes the BBC:
Basra City Council has withdrawn co-operation from UK forces in southern Iraq after the police's serious crimes unit was disbanded by troops. More than 1,000 troops helped to break-up the unit, which has been blamed for robberies and death squads.
Major Charlie Burbridge said local politics was "complicated" and targeting the unit had been justified.
Mohammed al Abadi, head of the city's council, said the raid was provocative and illegal.
During the operation, troops stormed the unit's headquarters and took charge of 127 prisoners whom they feared might be killed.
hey demolished the Jamiat police station, which was the Serious Crimes Unit's base in Basra.
Hm. So how to "put this in context...":
Major Burbridge, speaking on behalf of the British Army in Basra, said: "The local provincial council, or a few members of the local provincial council, conducted a press conference a couple of hours after the operation was completed and they criticised the way in which, or the means by which, we conducted the operation.
"Now let's say we put this in context. Of course the local political scene is a complicated one and the governor [Mohammed al-Waili] wasn't there at the press conference."
The major added: "He [Mohammed al-Waili] even had a conversation with our general and said that we had done the right thing.
"Furthermore, we have continued to have overwhelming support up in Baghdad from the Ministry of Defence, so we're pretty confident we've done the right thing here."
Perhaps we're at such a bad stage in Iraq that "pretty confident" is the best we're going to get...
Maj Burbridge added: "For some time we've been talking about culling the police force; well, this is exactly what we've done.
"We've removed a very significant and nasty part of the police force which has been scaring people in Basra and ultimately it's going to make Basra a better place.
Or not.
There have been long-held fears of the Iraqi police being infiltrated by corrupt officers.
And British forces have said some Iraqi commanders were using the unit as a cover for death squads and criminal activities.
I'm sure they have. The station in question had earned the catchy moniker, "the stastion of death. Catchy, no?
Welcome to post-Saddam Iraq. Same as pre-Saddam Iraq, only with bloody, out of control violence on every street corner.
The preamble video shows Saddam waving off the black hood that would have covered his face, and the hangman's noose being placed around his neck as he steps onto the platform that will be dropped out from under him, breaking his neck as he falls (we in the States are far too delicate to watch that video, of course...) and Newsweek has an 
