An Ugly Chapter in Iraq’s History
Linda Heard, sierra12th[@]yahoo.co.uk

Arab News

Few shed tears for Saddam Hussein. His crimes are known and his personality was hardly endearing. But there are many voices being raised against his flawed trial and his rushed execution, deliberately timed to fall on the first day of the Muslim Eid Al-Adha feast.

While it’s true that some Iraqis celebrated his demise in southern Iraq, Baghdad’s impoverished Sadr City and in the US town of Dearborn, Michigan, overall Muslims were shocked to wake up on the first morning of Eid to the sight of the former Iraqi leader’s head in a noose. Some Iraqi officials said the hanging was an Eid gift. It was one that most Muslims could have done without.

Glenda Jackson, a British Member of Parliament likened the televised execution to an Al-Qaeda beheading video. She was right. There were the now familiar hooded men preparing to take a life in a squalid environment. The difference is the victim had once been their leader. He showed no remorse and had no intention of begging for mercy.

The Iraqi prime minister, who signed Saddam’s death warrant, said like all tyrants Saddam was “frightened and terrified”. But if he was, this didn’t come across in the videos where a still defiant Saddam was seen calmly ready to face his death. One eyewitness said he saw a smile on his lips. Saddam told another not to be afraid.

This certainly wasn’t the kind of hoped-for PR that the Americans capitalized upon when they dragged a bearded and unkempt Saddam out of his spider hole. And it didn’t compare to the photographs of Saddam being medically examined or washing his own clothes dressed only in his underwear.

They thought they had a man who was broken and bowed but during his court sessions he proved them wrong again and again demanding to be given the title President of Iraq.

Whatever one thinks of Saddam, there is no disputing the fact he went to his death with courage and dignity. His daughters in Jordan said they were proud of the way their father conducted himself during his final hours.

Saddam refused tranquillizers and a meal of chicken and was denied a last cigarette. This was a man who wanted to be in control of himself until the last second. Perhaps he feared the meal might be drugged.

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