Saddam Hussein execution botched?

[Eega Beeva]

Sadly, it doesn't take an execution for that to happen.

I also heard on one of the news stations over the weekend that it was important for the Iraqi citizens to see the dead body or they would not believe that he was really dead. Could that be the reason that the person snuck the cell phone in there to film in the first place?

Prior to the execution I thought that pictures of dead SH would be paraded about much like they did with the photos of his dead sons. You are correct that this was used to prove he/they were really dead. I'm surprised that the only photo "offically" produced for general distribution of dead SH was a grainy shot of him in a white body bag.

 

[LakeAriel]

When we attack a country, hunt down it's president, and imprision him we have taken full responsible for this prisoner. When he is then lynched by a revengeful mob we put our own citizen's in harms way. When the insurgents capture American's in Iraq (their enemy) and taunt and then execute them they will feel justified but we will call them savages. We need to set an example which is why when we torture and ridicule in prison's it is unacceptable and set's a precendent for our troops/leaders to be treated the same. Please don't say Hussein received a fair trial because that was a joke. He was tried for crimes he commited in the 80's when he was OUR ally.
He should have been tried at the Hague. Period.
We have installed a fanatical government. What a disaster.

 

[TheDoctor]

I saw this article on how the Shia militias took over the execution. http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=15732007

SADDAM Hussein was hanged by "militias and outsiders" who infiltrated the execution chamber, an official claimed yesterday.

He said the hanging was meant to be carried out by executioners employed by the interior ministry but that "militias" had taken over instead.

"The execution was carried out by militias and outsiders. They put aside the team from the interior ministry that was supposed to carry it out," the official said.

It was obvious from the video that the Shia militias were running the execution. Remember that Malaki is backed by Al Sadr and that Malaki forced our troops to abandon a series of roadblocks set up a while back to look for a kidnapped US solider because Al Sadr complained. I do not think that we went to war in Iraq just so that the Shia militias and Al Sadr could gain control of the Iraqi government.

 

[TheDoctor]

I hope that this report is wrong. http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/559/Rumors_about_Saddams_Executioners

Al Jazeera has claimed that an Iraqi official who did not want to be identified has told it that an Iraqi militia (presumably Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army) replaced all the security officials responsible for executing Saddam with its own militiamen. Meanwhile the Sunni pro-Baathist website Iraqi Rabita has claimed that one of the masked men who put the noose around Saddam’s neck was in fact Muqtada al Sadr. The website posted photos from the execution film and pointed to the man they suspected was Muqtada. They compared the masked man’s facial hair (what was visible) and his ring, with those of Muqtada. They claimed this was why the onlookers were chanting for Muqtada.

The concept that we let Al Sadr be one of Saddam's executioners is just plain wrong.

 

[TheDoctor]

The Iraqiis botched the hanging of Saddam's half-brother. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/w...&en=0e3df6eb55462123&ei=5094&partner=homepage

BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 — Iraq’s turbulent effort to reckon with the violence of its past took another macabre turn on Monday when the execution of Saddam Hussein’s half brother ended with the hangman’s noose decapitating him after he dropped through the gallows trapdoor.

An official video played to a small group of Iraqi and Western reporters more than 13 hours after the hanging showed Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former head of Mr. Hussein’s secret police, standing nervously on the trapdoor in a flame-orange jumpsuit of the kind used at the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, his head and mustache shaved. Beside him, praying feverishly in identical garb, stood the other condemned man, Awad Hamad al-Bandar, the former chief judge of Mr. Hussein’s revolutionary court.

After executioners in full-face balaclavas pulled black hoods over the two men’s heads, tightened nooses around their necks and pulled the lever opening the trapdoors, both fell like weights. But the hangmen’s calculations of weight, gravity and the momentum needed to snap their necks — a grim science that has produced detailed “drop charts” used for decades in hangings around the world — appeared, in Mr. Ibrahim’s case, to have gone seriously awry.

 

[LakeAriel]

Hmm the elephant in the room...........

 

[Charade]

When we attack a country, hunt down it's president, and imprision him we have taken full responsible for this prisoner. When he is then lynched by a revengeful mob we put our own citizen's in harms way. When the insurgents capture American's in Iraq (their enemy) and taunt and then execute them they will feel justified but we will call them savages. We need to set an example which is why when we torture and ridicule in prison's it is unacceptable and set's a precendent for our troops/leaders to be treated the same. Please don't say Hussein received a fair trial because that was a joke. He was tried for crimes he commited in the 80's when he was OUR ally.
He should have been tried at the Hague. Period.
We have installed a fanatical government. What a disaster.

 

[Charade]

I hope that this report is wrong. http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/559/Rumors_about_Saddams_ExecutionersThe concept that we let Al Sadr be one of Saddam's executioners is just plain wrong.

You scoff at news from the moonies and drudge but you cite Al Jazeera??

What concept? We didn't let Al Sadr become one of his executioners.

 

[sewer]

These men killed thousands, and everyone is worried about their dignity? Give me a break.

 

[Fitswimmer]

These men killed thousands, and everyone is worried about their dignity? Give me a break.

I'm not worried about his dignity at all-I'm worried about the dignity of those who tried and executed him. How the execution was handled says more about the people that carried it out then it does about Saddam.

 

[Charade]

I'm not worried about his dignity at all-I'm worried about the dignity of those who tried and executed him. How the execution was handled says more about the people that carried it out then it does about Saddam.

I agree but for TheDoctor's claim that the "concept..." was just way out of line. And wrong. And silly. And...

 

[TheDoctor]

According the NYT, the botched executions are increasing the violence in the ongoing civil war in Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/w...&en=0fb09876671b4299&ei=5094&partner=homepage

CAIRO, Jan. 16 — The botched hanging of Saddam Hussein and two lieutenants in Iraq by its Shiite-led government has helped to accelerate Sunni-Shiite sectarianism across an already fragile Middle East, according to experts across the region.

The chaotic executions and the calm with which Mr. Hussein confronted the gallows and mocking Shiite guards have bolstered his image among many of his fellow Sunni Muslims.

But something else is happening too: a pan-Muslim unity that surged after the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, is waning.

And while political analysts and government officials in the region say the spreading Sunni disillusionment with Shiites and their backers in Iran will benefit Sunni-led governments and the United States, they and others worry that the tensions could start to balkanize the region as they have in Iraq itself.

“The reality of the current situation is that we are approaching an open Sunni-Shiite conflict in the region,” said Emad Gad, a specialist in international relations at the government-financed Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “And Egypt will also be a part of it as a part of the Sunni axis. No one will be able to avoid or escape it.”

Even bush stated that the hanging looked like a revenge killing and was a negaitve factor.

 

[TheDoctor]

What concept? We didn't let Al Sadr become one of his executioners.

We let the hanging take place on a US base with the executioners shouting pro-Al Sadr slogans. Many Sunnis are looking at the pictures and they believe that Al Sadr may have been invovled. http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21259412.shtml

Sunni Web sites are buzzing with speculation that Muqtada al-Sadr was one of Saddam Hussein's executioners. The speculators are offering the following photos as evidence. The Iraqi government has formally denied al-Sadr participated in Saddam's hanging.

The Saddam Hussein execution video has caused an enormous stir of emotions. The Saddam Hussein hanging shows the former Iraqi President being executed for crimes against humanity.

There has been mixed reaction to the way the Iraqi's have handled this very sensitive situation.

The fact that this claim is getting attention among the Sunnis is sufficient to further stoke the fires of the ongoing civil war in Iraq

 

[PaulaSB12]

I was suprised that he was hung, for sopme reason I always assumed he would get shot.

 

[dcentity2000]

Heh, there are already to rather ludicrous rumours going round;

1. There was no execution;
2. It wasn't Saddam who they hanged.

Rich::

 

[bevtoy]

millions of dollars per day to wage an illegal war and we get smuggled camera phone footage. for that price, it should have been broadcast in hi-def.

Well, at least there is the hard to find and highly prized picture of Saddams cat. The graphics are priceless.
I can't post it here, but anyone who wants to see it cam PM me their e-mail.
(Warning, not for the weak stomached)

 

[Charade]

Well, at least there is the hard to find and highly prized picture of Saddams cat. The graphics are priceless.
I can't post it here, but anyone who wants to see it cam PM me their e-mail.
(Warning, not for the weak stomached)

They hung the cat?!?!

 

[honeymom]

It seems like we have replaced one barbarian government with another. Sure they don't openly have a military that kills dissenters like SH's government did. However, they haven't renounced Al-Sadr either and Al-Sadr has a militia that is killing a lot of people.

 

[Charade]

We let the hanging take place on a US base with the executioners shouting pro-Al Sadr slogans. Many Sunnis are looking at the pictures and they believe that Al Sadr may have been invovled. http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21259412.shtmlThe fact that this claim is getting attention among the Sunnis is sufficient to further stoke the fires of the ongoing civil war in Iraq

I still don't see a "concept" here. If the ball was dropped, it was the Iraqi government's fault. Not ours. Do you really want to place blame on the US for mistakes made by the Iraqi government? Geez.

 

[Charade]

It seems like we have replaced one barbarian government with another. Sure they don't openly have a military that kills dissenters like SH's government did. However, they haven't renounced Al-Sadr either and Al-Sadr has a militia that is killing a lot of people.

I guess it's true then. They're all uncivilized savages over there.

So you believe that the execution was infiltrated by Al-Sadr himself? How did you come up with the idea that Al-Sadr hasn't been denounced by the Iraqi government?