Dyre Straits

As I write this, the TV news is reporting that Saddam Hussein has been executed as a result of the long trial in Iraq. His purported crimes, of which there are many, resulted in a verdict of guilty and the Iraqi court sentenced him to be hanged.

We will update this a new information developes.


Updated: All official news outlets are now confirming that Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, has been hanged for crimes against humanity. The execution took place shortly before dawn, December 30, 2006 Iraq time.

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Mac Daddy

Same reports on Yahoo Bro ...


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein struggled briefly after American military guards handed him over to Iraqi executioners. But as his final moments approached, he grew calm. He clutched a Quran as he was led to the gallows, and in one final moment of defiance, refused to have a hood pulled over his head before facing the same fate he was accused of inflicting on countless thousands during a quarter-century of ruthless power.


A man whose testimony helped lead to Saddam's conviction and execution before sunrise Saturday said he was shown the body because "everybody wanted to make sure that he was really executed."

"Now, he is in the garbage of history," said Jawad Abdul-Aziz, who lost his father, three brothers and 22 cousins in the reprisal killings that followed a botched 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the Shiite town of Dujail.

In Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, hundreds of people danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to celebrate his death. The government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was convicted to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence.

It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn insurgency by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.

The execution took place during the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops, with the toll reaching 108.

President Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice "is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror."

He said that the execution marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops" and cautioned that Saddam's death will not halt the violence in Iraq.

Within hours of Saddam's execution, a bomb planted aboard a minibus exploded in a fish market south of Baghdad, killing 17 people, said Haidr Nahi, service director of the al-Furat al-Awssat Hospital. Some 26 others were wounded in the explosion in Kufa, a Shiite town 100 miles south of the Iraqi capital.

Ali Hamza, a 30-year-old university professor, said he went outside to shoot his gun into the air after he learned of Saddam's death.

"Now all the victims' families will be happy because Saddam got his just sentence," said Hamza, who lives in Diwaniyah, a Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad.

But people in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his death.

"The president, the leader Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior," said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque.

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 street of Tikrit in spite of the curfew carrying pictures of Saddam and shooting into the air and calling for vengeance on Saddam's execution.

Security forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold, Samarra, and a curfew was imposed after about 500 people took to the streets protesting the execution of Saddam.


MORE

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"People who live in glass houses shouldn't cast stones"

=CDU=Above

Why didn't he just do it himself Hitler style? It would have saved everyone a bunch of time and money.

Unixlord

He was too busy shut in that hole playing WoW.

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IQ, when aggregated, follows Ohm's law.

Dyre Straits

(Sung to the tune of "The Wicked Witch is Dead" from "The Wizard of Oz" movie.)


Snap! Crack! He won't be back!
He won't be back!
He won't be back!
Snap! Crack! He won't be back!
They hung him by his neck!

Snap! Crack! He won't be back!
He won't be back!
He won't be back!
Snap! Crack! He won't be back!
Saddam is fin'ly dead!

Snap! Crack! He won't be back!
He won't be back!
He won't be back!
Snap! Crack! He won't be back!
For that we thank IRAQ!

(Lyrics by Lewis N. Turner, December 30, 2006)

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HaZe303

LOL...

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Noobi Zubi

i don't understand why they had to execute the fuc*er during aid el adcha (a muslim holy day). it just don't make sense.

this day is knowen as day of forgiveness, not executions.

allow me to raise today's conspirasy theory: the man executed wasn't Saddam Hussain, but one of his doubles.

the real Saddam sold his soul to the american army long time ago and is helping them to take out rebal outposts.

that's my theory.

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no matter what you'll ask of me - all you'll get is a Zubi

Unixlord

Never heard of such a thing ...

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IQ, when aggregated, follows Ohm's law.

ZhengHe

I think they actually wound up execting him the day before adcha so that there wouldnt' be any trouble. As for whether he is actually dead or not I have no reason to disbelieve them since there must have been millions of people in Iraq who would personally want to kill him. A few thousand signed up to become his hangman. Then again they could technically have hung a double and then he'd still be alive, but so what if that's true. In the minds of the world he is dead and of little or no threat to anyone. If the man winds up living in seclusion an an imformant for the US army he will only be of minor importance for the rest of his life, along with being incredibly isolated to the affect that he might as well be dead. Doesn't realy matter in the end.

IModIntel

They shouldn't have killed him. They should have just sealed him in an isolated cell and let him rot there. Or just hand him over to the Kurds of which he killed about half a million civilians to test his chemical weapons.

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