Posted on 01/08/2007 5:45:57 PM PST by blam
Saddam believed that he would be reprieved
By Damien McElroy
Last Updated: 9:05am GMT 08/01/2007
Saddam Hussein finally accepted his fate only two hours before his death, it emerged yesterday.
Saddam Hussein moments before his execution
Locks on his jail door at Camp Cropper detention facility near Baghdad airport slid open and guards entered to take the former dictator to a waiting helicopter. It was 3:55 am.
Saddam looked up to accept for the first time that he was a condemned man facing death at the hands of his enemies. Members of Task Force 134, the US military unit guarding Saddam, revealed he had heard rumours of his impending execution on the radio.
A statement from the group said, however, he remained confident of a reprieve until his cell door opened: “He immediately indicated that he knew the execution would soon follow.”
Despite receiving a death sentence for the murder of 148 Shia Muslim villagers, Saddam believed Washington would spare him to help negotiate with insurgents to end the war.
According to an American account published yesterday, the ex-tyrant remained courteous while in US custody:
“As he left the detention area, he thanked the guards and medics for the treatment he had received.” But after a brief helicopter flight over Baghdad’s roof tops to the execution site in the north of the city, the 69-year old’s demeanour changed to hostile condescension towards waiting Iraqis.
An American official observed: “He was still dignified but he was scornful.”
Traces of bravado were evident, said Iraq’s National Security Advisor, Mowaffak al-Rubaie: “He said to me, 'Don’t be afraid,’ as if I was going to be hanged.”
Saddam was not wholly deluded in his belief that America would try to stop his hanging. Iraqi and American officials fought angrily after an Iraqi court rejected his appeal against the death penalty on Boxing Day. After four days of wrangling, Washington threw in the towel.
Demands by the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, for a quick execution prevailed over the opposition of Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad, and General George Casey, the commander of US forces. Both men were holidaying in America that week but sent a series of messages to Baghdad and Washington urging a delay until after the New Year.
Two subordinate US officials weathered protests from Iraqi ministers, according to Mr Rubaie.
He recalled shouting during an exchange: “This is an Iraqi issue. Who is going to execute him anyway, you or us?”
The American retorted that the Iraqis weren’t following their own procedures, prompting a roar from a second Iraqi official: “Just give him to us.” It also emerged yesterday that Mr Maliki sought final authority for signing the death warrant from Iraq’s Shia Muslim hierarchy in the holy city Najaf.
Saddam’s exiled daughters Raghad and Rana spoke yesterday about the devastating of shock their father’s execution. “People tell me I should be strong,” said Rana. “This was the last straw for me. This is the end.
“I guess I still held hope that by some miracle, by some last-minute act of God, it would not come to this,” she said. “I allowed myself to believe - to continue to hope - that somehow, somewhere we would meet again and reunite. I never thought I would never see him again.”
The two sisters, who were widowed when Saddam ordered the execution of their husbands for attempting to defect, now live in exile in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
Proud of her father - “the strongest Arab” - Rana wears a gold coin etched with his image around her neck. She said: “I used to sit on my prayer mat and pray and plead to God not to deprive me of him.”
On the night of Saddam’s execution, both women stayed up until news broke at dawn that the hanging had been carried out. Only Raghad has watched the grisly video footage of the former tyrant’s hanging.
He was dead wrong. :)
Pass the crying towel...I'm sooo shook up over those beastly Iraqis killing poooor Saddam Hussein. Boo hoo..
Very good -- He was surprised that he was not going to escape justice.
"It also emerged yesterday that Mr Maliki sought final authority for signing the death warrant from Iraq’s Shia Muslim hierarchy in the holy city Najaf"
that's the problem here.
Don't meglomaniacs think that the world is their own playground? I'm guessing that this monster believed that the world couldn't go on without him.
They can still use that, isn't Obama's middle name Hussein?
they don't need Saddam for that - they've already got a Rodham/Hussein ticket for 2008 - with Obama.
As long as Iraq is a sectarian government, they are a threat to all non-muslim countries. Not as much a threat as they were, but a threat. For non-muslims there is no acceptable sectarian government.
Plus, are the girls pieces of work, or what? Miss their nice old pop? May he and Allah be joined!
??The two sisters, who were widowed when Saddam ordered the execution of their husbands for attempting to defect, now live in exile in the Jordanian capital, Amman.??
Sometimes it's just too easy.
Saddam must have watched too much American T.V. He mistakenly thought that he'd escape justice like most murdering thugs in the U.S. do.
Cry me a river.
You guys are right, using the middle names it's RODHAM HUSSEIN.
All indications suggest that the USA wanted him to to be tried, convicted and ultimately hanged, for the even larger "crimes against humanity" he committed against the Kurds.
It seems a bit odd "they, meaning the Shiites, settled so quickly for his death for a mere 148 individuals, when the primary trial was ongoing for tens of thousands of Kurds.
I don't pretend to understand their "reasoning", but in all this talk of Sunni vs Shiite, little seems to be said of the Kurds.
I wonder why?
I have no love lost for any of the Muslim sects, but the Kurds must be seated prominently at the first table in Iraq.
IMHO, they deserved first dibs on his "execution".
"The grisly footage." I didn't find it grisly at all; it just looked like a hanging usually looks, rope around the neck and then a drop through the trapdoor. No sympathy for his daughters, including the wonderfully named Raghead.
Probably arranged marriages so they didn't give a crap about the smelly men daddy rid them of, as long as he still took care of them. Now that daddy's dead, brothers are dead, and hubbies are dead, those two have no men to support them. Sucks to be them in the Arab world.
Frankly, I'm delighted both of them will be gone shortly, and I don't think too many folks are shedding a tear, either.
I thank them for their past service.
Leni
I agree. I have seen much worse deaths.
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