| Latest Forum Topics / Others |
 Post Reply
|
|
Saddam To Hang Within 30 Days
|
|
|
tanglinboy
Elite |
02-Jan-2007 21:33
Yells: "hello!" |
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. officials reportedly tried to delay last week's execution of Saddam Hussein, fearing it would fuel perceptions the death of the former Iraqi dictator was more about Shiite retribution and less about justice. Those fears seemed borne out by an amateur recording of Hussein's last moments. It was a caution that fell on deaf ears, however, as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, was determined to put Hussein to death before the beginning of the Eid al-Adha holiday. The holiday began at sunrise Saturday for Iraqi Sunnis on Sunday for Shiites. Hussein, a Sunni, was executed 6 a.m. Saturday (10 p.m. Friday ET). (Watch Iraqis pass around footage of execution  )
Official: U.S. wanted to wait two weeksBy midday Friday, amid reports and public denials that the United States had given Iraqis custody of Hussein, American officials were talking privately with al-Maliki, according to a member of the Iraqi parliament close to the prime minister. At one point, the parliament member said, a top U.S. official suggested a delay of two weeks. Al-Maliki and his aides rejected that, the Iraqi official said, citing security concerns and rumors of possible violence swirling around the capital. (Watch what transpired in the days before the execution )
Meanwhile, the Iraqi official said, the Americans asked for written documentation to make sure the execution was legal under the Iraqi constitution. There was one final hurdle: Would President Jalal Talabani, a Sunni Kurd who opposes the death penalty, object to the execution? A phone call later Friday between al-Maliki and the president ended with a decision that Talabani's signature was not needed. No explanation for the decision was given. Late Friday night, the parliament member told CNN, top U.S. officials met with al-Maliki's deputies to work out when the handover should take place, along with other logistical arrangements. At that point, Iraqi officials told the media that al-Maliki had signed the last crucial document. Conflicting accounts of Hussein's demeanorHussein's delivery to the gallows went by the book. He was transported from his holding cell at Camp Cropper to the execution site, a building where Hussein's intelligence officers had hanged so many others. There, he was handed over to Iraqi security. Two witnesses have given conflicting accounts on his bearing as he walked to his death. Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, called him "a broken man." "He was staring at me, and I was sort of looking at him as well, in a forceful way," he said. "And then he said -- he was telling me, don't be afraid. Of course, you know, this is -- he's afraid, so he was frightened." But a top judge -- Munir Haddad of the Iraqi Supreme Appellate Court, which upheld the death sentence -- saw Hussein differently. "I was very surprised," he said. "He was not afraid of death." Cell-phone videoThe official government video of the execution was released without sound and ends when the noose is put around Hussein's neck. But a crude cell-phone video leaked less than 24 hours later goes much further -- showing bitter exchanges between Hussein and his Shiite guards. After Hussein offers prayers, the guards shout praise for Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric whose father is believed to have been murdered by Hussein's regime. They chant, "Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!" Hussein smiles. "Is this how you show your bravery as men?" he asks. "Straight to hell," someone shouts back at him. "Is this the bravery of Arabs?" Hussein asks. A sole voice is heard trying to silence the taunts. "Please, I am begging you not to," the unknown man says. "The man is being executed." Another shout, "Long live Mohammed Baqir Sadr" -- referring to Muqtada al-Sadr's father-in-law and a founder of the Shiite Dawa movement who was executed by the Hussein regime. Dawa is al-Maliki's party. The taunts continued, and the trapdoor dropped shortly after 6 a.m. Saturday. Hussein was hanged. (Watch Hussein's last moments )
Immediately after, Shiite witnesses danced around his body, chanting celebratory slogans. On Sunday, the U.S. military transported Hussein's body for burial at his home village of Awja near Tikrit, where Sunnis took to the streets loudly calling the former Iraqi president a hero and a martyr. The grainy, dark video has outraged Sunnis, while Shiites have scrambled to see for themselves that Hussein was dead. "It's something amazing," said Abbas Mansour, owner of a mobile-phone store in Baghdad. "No one really believed that Saddam would be executed because the people were so scared of him and his regime. "So anything of him, on TV or on mobile phones, they want to see it. It's like a thirst that cannot be quenched. Even little kids are looking for it." Mahmoud Askar, a Kurd who believes Hussein deserved to be hanged for his crimes, does not agree with the way it was carried out. "The way the whole thing was filmed was a bad decision by the government, and ultimately helped Saddam because people sympathize with him," he said. U.S. military officials would not comment for this story, saying the execution proceedings were matters handled by the Iraqis. |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
tanglinboy
Elite |
02-Jan-2007 21:31
Yells: "hello!" |
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Seems more like revenge rather than justice to me. The executioners were taunting Saddam before hanging him. They were out for blood! |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
|
|
|
Sporeguy
Elite |
02-Jan-2007 11:00
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
I think the US is smart by allowing Iraqi government to sentence Saddam to death. So it is not in conflict with their constituition, etc. |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
EastonBay
Master |
02-Jan-2007 00:15
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
I am not totally against death sentence (especially for drug trafficking, murderer.. politically correct also lah... maintaining same line as garmen :) ) What I didn't like about this whole mess is that American is damned double standard.... Most states in the US do not allow death sentence. And they often argue for HUMAN rights... see what rights did Saddam get as a human being? Imagine... putting ropes around his neck just before kee-chiang for the whole world to watch. *sigh* human rights! |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
tanglinboy
Elite |
31-Dec-2006 12:17
Yells: "hello!" |
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Agree with you man... the terrorists now have another excuse and punchline to recruit more terrorists! |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
|
|
|
billywows
Elite |
31-Dec-2006 12:08
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Words of exchanged before he was hanged yesterday below ... I would prefer a life imprisonment for him, than giving Osama and gang a 'good excuse' to start their terror acts. I am very very wary of the global market's height at where they are trading now! -------------------- 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 responses within Iraq to Saddam's death echoed the larger reaction across the Middle East, with his enemies rejoicing and his defenders proclaiming him a martyr. While Iranians and Kuwaitis welcomed the death of the leader who led wars against each of their countries, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the execution prevented exposure of the secrets and crimes the former dictator committed during his brutal rule. Some Arab governments denounced the timing the 69-year-old former president's hanging just before the start of the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha. Libya announced a three-day official mourning period and canceled all celebrations for Eid. Within Iraq and across the world, the airwaves were alive with pictures of Saddam in death, a bruise on his cheek, his neck elongated and twisted impossibly to the right ? grisly proof that the man who had tormented and killed so many during a bloody quarter-century rule was truly dead. But some Iraqis ? like 34-year-old Haider Hamed, a candy store owner in east Baghdad ? wondered what would really change with the execution of Saddam, who was just four months shy of his 70th birthday. "He's gone, but our problems continue," said the Shiite Muslim, whose uncle was killed in one of Saddam's many brutal purges. "We brought problems on ourselves after Saddam because we began fighting Shiite on Sunni and Sunni on Shiite." At least 80 Iraqis died in bombings and other attacks Saturday, and police said 12 more tortured bodies were found dumped in Baghdad. The U.S. military announced six more service-members ? three soldiers and three Marines ? were killed. The execution took place on the penultimate day of 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 died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to an AP count. Arab satellite television channels said Saddam's body had been be returned to Tikrit for Sunday burial next to his sons Odai and Qusai in the main cemetery in the nearby town of Ouja, where Saddam was born. The sons and a grandson were killed in a gunbattle with the Americans in Mosul in July 2003. State-run Al-Iraqiya television later confirmed the body had been handed to the Salahuddin province governor and the leader of Saddam's Albu-Nassir clan. Um Abdullah, a Sunni and teacher in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, said she would wear black to mourn the city's favorite son. "Saddam will be a hero in our eyes," she said. "I have five kids and I will teach them to take revenge on Americans." Police blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days. Despite the security precaution, gunmen took into the streets, carrying pictures of Saddam, shooting into the air and calling for vengeance. Security forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold, Samarra, and a curfew was imposed after about 500 went into the streets to protest the execution. Among minority Sunnis there was deep anger, born not only of Saddam's execution but of the loss of their decades-long political and economic dominance that began with Saddam's ouster in the U.S. invasion nearly four years ago. "The president, the leader, Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs," said Yahya al-Attawi, who led prayer at a towering Sunni mosque constructed by Saddam in Tikrit. There were cheers at the cafeteria of a U.S. outpost in Baghdad as soldiers having breakfast learned Saddam had been hanged. But members of the Army's 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, on patrol in an overwhelmingly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, said the execution wouldn't get them home any faster ? and therefore didn't make much difference. "Nothing really changes," said Capt. Dave Eastburn, 30, of Columbus, Ohio. "The militias run everything now, not Saddam." Staff Sgt. David Earp, who also fought in 1991's Operation Desert Storm, said the execution worried him. "In my opinion, something big is going to happen," said Earp, of Colorado Springs, Colo. "There will be a response. Probably not today because they know we are looking for one, but soon." -------------- |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
tanglinboy
Elite |
31-Dec-2006 07:31
Yells: "hello!" |
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Ok... the bombing done by Basque |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
giantlow
Master |
31-Dec-2006 01:00
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
nothing got to do with Saddam 19 slightly injured in bomb at Madrid airport Posted: 30 December 2006 1712 hrs http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/249907/1/.html |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
|
|
|
tanglinboy
Elite |
30-Dec-2006 23:14
Yells: "hello!" |
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Damn... I just saw CNN... I hate the way the western media take footage of Saddam just before his execution. The fella was a dictator who did many bad things but for god's sake... I think its demeaning and immoral that the journalists take advantage and film the last moments of a man who's about to be executed. |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
red1721
Senior |
30-Dec-2006 17:27
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
hmmm.....prolly some terrorist revenging for saddam |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
iPunter
Supreme |
30-Dec-2006 17:25
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Seems to be scant info... only 'car park' explosion .. mentioned. |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
singaporegal
Supreme |
30-Dec-2006 17:18
Yells: "Female TA nut" |
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
On CNN... multiple explosions in the airport. I hope its not related to Saddam's execution... |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
|
|
|
giantlow
Master |
30-Dec-2006 17:13
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
where did u get news so fast, singaporegal? |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
singaporegal
Supreme |
30-Dec-2006 16:47
Yells: "Female TA nut" |
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Alamak.... explosion in Madrid Airport.... |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
giantlow
Master |
30-Dec-2006 14:30
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
some muslim holiday coming up these few days. i fear the worst |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
pikachu
Veteran |
30-Dec-2006 14:14
Yells: "Holy Cow!" |
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Saddam si liao.... I hope this NY weekend will be peaceful |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
crazy_money
Member |
30-Dec-2006 12:29
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
so fast die already. more unrest coming soon... |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
ROI25per
Master |
30-Dec-2006 11:26
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Saddam Hussein hanged, says Al Hurra TV station By Mariam Karouny BAGHDAD (Reuters) - 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. 
The top news, photos, and videos of 2006. Full Coverage An appeals court upheld the death penalty on Tuesday and the government rushed through the procedures to hang him by the end of the year and before the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on Saturday, coinciding with the haj pilgrimage to Mecca. The government had kept details of its plans shrouded in secrecy amid concerns it could spark a violent backlash from his former supporters with Iraq on the brink of civil war. The execution will delight Iraq's majority Shi'ites, who faced oppression during Saddam's three-decade rule, but may anger some in his resentful Sunni minority. Some Kurdish leaders had sought a delay so they too could see justice for the man they accuse of genocide against them Saddam's conviction on November 5 was hailed by President Bush as a triumph for the democracy he promised to foster in Iraq after the invasion almost four years ago. With U.S. public support for the war slumping as the number of American dead approaches 3,000, Washington is likely to welcome the death of Saddam, despite misgivings among many allies about capital punishment. But the hanging could complicate efforts by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to heal Iraq's sectarian divisions with violence spiralling out of control and threatening to pitch the country into full-scale civil war. Once the belligerent strongman of the Middle East, Saddam's power crumbled when U.S. tanks swept into Baghdad in April 2003. He fled and was captured in December that year by U.S. soldiers who found him hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.
The top news, photos, and videos of 2006. Full Coverage During his three decades in power, Saddam was accused of widespread oppression of political opponents and genocide against Kurds in northern Iraq. His execution means he will never face justice on those charges. Defiant to the end, Saddam insisted during his trial that he was still the president of Iraq. He said in a letter written after his conviction in November that he offered himself as a "sacrifice". "If my soul goes down this path (of martyrdom) it will face God in serenity," he wrote in the letter. |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
iPunter
Supreme |
30-Dec-2006 07:46
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Sadly, it's an ongoing history ... from victor to victor... time never stops. |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |
|
billywows
Elite |
29-Dec-2006 23:38
|
|
x 0
x 0 Alert Admin |
Saddam remains in U.S. military prisonAP - 9 minutes agoBAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's half brothers visited him in his jail cell and he gave them his will and personal belongings, Iraqi officials said Friday, indicating his execution may be approaching. But they said he had yet to be transferred to Iraqi custody. The former president is at an American military prison where he is expected to remain until the day of his execution, when he is to be transferred to Iraqi authorities. ---------------- |
| Useful To Me Not Useful To Me | |