Posted on 12/29/2006 7:25:33 PM PST by j_accuse
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 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.
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.
(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Ibon Villelabeitia, Claudia Parsons in Baghdad and Suleiman Khalidi in Dubai)
Just now, the reporterette on 1010 WINS radio (NYC) was choking as she read a wire report about Iraqis pouring into the streets of Baghdad, cheering and waving flags!
Saddam Hussein is dead? It's all Bush's fault!!!
Now lets get started on the american left !
Yay! Justice for a change.
Sadly a large number of Americans are no doubt bemoaning this act while still seeing Bush as the greatest threat to peace in the world.
Are you serious?
Do you know how many people are dead because of him?
They disgust me.
On CNN Anderson Cooper is looking grim when a field correspondent interviewed Iraqis in Dearbourne Michigan. The look on his face was priceless when the Iraqi said the was in Iraq was justified for the death of Saddam Hussein.
Oneless democrat in the race for '08.
I suspect that Satan has his hands full with his own problems....
c'mon freepers, where's the video?
Saddam Hussein hanged
Sumbich finally reached the end of his rope!
Then this is a day of independence for all the Iraqis
And their descendants
Yes, let the joyous news be spread
The wicked old Saddam at last is dead.
I as well all want to see the uncut version.
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