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Iraqi
Former President Saddam Hussein Executed |
Posted:
01.02.07
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Before dawn on the Eid al-Adha holiday Saturday, Iraq's former
president Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging for war crimes.
He was 69.
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Saddam, a Sunni Muslim, led the Baath Party during a 25-year
dictatorship, overseeing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
his own country's people.
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A violent
history |
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Saddam took Iraq's presidency
in 1979 and a year later had led his country into an eight-year
war with the predominantly Shiite Iran.
 The
Iran-Iraq war deprived Iraqis, but it was the short-lived 1990
invasion of neighbor Kuwait -- repelled by a U.S.-lead force in
1991 -- that lead to the international sanctions that impoverished
the Iraqi people.
Even after Saddam's regime was toppled in spring 2003 -- and
after Saddam himself was caught by U.S. forces later that year
-- Iraq has struggled to reestablish its oil-based economy and
fulfill the basic needs of its people.
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War crimes |
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In 2003, the U.S.-backed
Iraqi government established a special tribunal to prosecute the
war crimes and crimes against humanity of Saddam's Baathist regime.
Before his death, Saddam was charged with three war crimes dating
back to the Iran-Iraq war: the 1982 execution of 148 Shiite Muslims
in the city of Dujail, a series of attacks that left 180,000 northern
Iraqi Kurds dead in the 1980s, and a poison gas attack that killed
5,000 Kurds.
 When
the trials started in October 2005, Saddam, introducing himself
as the president of Iraq, told the judge, "I do not recognize
the body that has authorized you and I don't recognize this aggression."
Human Rights Watch criticized the trials as being "deeply
flawed," citing bias from the judge, failures to provide
evidence to the defense lawyers and violations of the defendants'
rights to question witnesses.
Saddam was sentenced in November and, following failed appeals,
was hanged on Saturday for the Shiite killings, the simplest of
the crimes to prosecute.
As Britain, Germany, France, the EU and the Vatican joined Human
Rights Watch in their condemnation of the death penalty despite
the former leader's horrendous acts, President Bush said in a
statement the execution was "an important milestone on Iraq's
course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend
itself."
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Reaction
from Iraqis |
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Iraqi Shiite Muslims, who
were oppressed under Saddam's dictatorship despite comprising the
majority of the Iraqi people, celebrated the hanging as an Eid gift
in the streets of Najaf, a holy Shiite city, and Sadr City, a Shiite
slum in Baghdad.
 Sunni
Iraqis proclaimed Saddam a martyr and hero, showing their support
for Saddam in Sunni Baghdad neighborhoods.
But the celebrations were short-lived. A few hours after the
hanging, a series of car bombs killed 31 people in a mixed Sunni-Shiite
Muslim Baghdad district, serving as a reminder that all Iraqis
face continued threats from both rebels who no longer carry out
the wishes of their executed leader and insurgents who fight along
religious lines.
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Iraqi reconciliation
efforts |
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The haste at which Saddam's execution was carried out by the
now-Shiite-run government, taunts overheard on a cell-phone video
recording of the hanging, and chants in support of Shiite cleric
and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, have raised questions about
the effects the execution will have on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's
efforts for reconciliation among Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and former
Baathists.
"The timing of the execution and the footage shown hurt
the feelings of those who have the desire to join the political
process," Saleem al-Jibouri, a moderate Sunni Iraqi politician,
told Reuters.
 Ehab
Abdel-Hamid, a Cairo newspaper editor, added, "Muslims will
think this was done to provoke their feelings," Reuters reported.
Adeed Dawisha, a political science professor from Miami University
of Ohio, told the NewsHour his friends and relatives in Iraq were
"resigned" after the execution.
He said, "Their joy was rather subdued because the real
matters at hand was the insecurity, the lack of electricity, the
corruption … and these are the issues that will ultimately
make or break the government."
--
Compiled by Adnaan Wasey for NewsHour Extra
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Joplin was able to rise from the ashes because of help from everyone. And I am eternally grateful to anyone who made that possible.
