The 69-year-old former President Saddam Hussein, a staunch friend of India(who support India on Kashmir issue), who ruled Iraq with an iron fist for over quarter of a century, was taken to the gallows and executed at 6 am local time on Saturday, three years after he was deposed from power by the US;Iraqi state-run television reported. Saddam Hussein struggled briefly after American military guards handed him over to Iraqi executioners before dawn Saturday. But as his final moments approached and masked executioners slipped a black cloth and noose around his neck, he grew calm. His hanging closed the books on a man who dealt with and benefited from the United States, then defied it. Saddam was vilified by the U.S. government probably more than any dictator since Adolf Hitler. It was lamenting to see that the man who ws committed to Secularism had to die in this way. Iraq was at least a partly westernized and secular presence in a time of rising anti-American sentiment in the region, and had relations with the Soviets that Washington wanted to restrain. In the long war between Iran and Iraq, the Reagan administration helped Saddam get international loans, restored formal relations in 1984 and secretly provided Iraq with intelligence and military support. By 1991, the United States was at war with Iraq, assembling a coalition to force Saddam to reverse his annexation of Kuwait. Saddam was the target of U.S. denunciation from then on, as a sponsor of terrorism, a seeker of weapons of mass destruction, and a ruthless murderer of Kurds, opponents of his rule and inconvenient family members. Left in power after his forces retreated from Kuwait, Saddam was a volcanic presence in U.S. affairs for another decade, capped but toxic. It was a time of convoluted sanctions, fitful weapons inspections and no-fly-zone confrontations.
After he was captured by U.S. troops three years ago, dirty and disheveled, in a hole not far from the village of his youth, Hussein mocked the tribunal set up to try him and declared himself Iraq's rightful ruler. "I am still the president of the state," he told the judge in his first formal testimony in the year-long trial. "I am president."
At his trial, Hussein described the Americans as "criminals" who came to Iraq "under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction and the pretext of democracy." During Hussein's years in power, he strove to harness his country's bountiful supply of oil to build Iraq into a major power in the Middle East and reclaim the glory of past Arab civilizations. Throughout that time, he was ruthless in eliminating the political enemies of his Baath Socialist Party -- by execution, imprisonment or forced exile -- and increasingly paranoid about possible rivals or traitors. If he has at all committed crime against the humanilty, as a dictatory he should be given life imprisonment. This is absolutely disappointing and shows how the US imperialism has been spreading its fangs throughout the world. I have special affection for this tiny country as small as California State of US, because my uncle used to worked in Iraq during the time of first war with Iran. He used to stay in Bagdad near the river Tigris.
MECCA, Saudi Arabia - Arab pilgrims in Mecca expressed outrage on Saturday that Iraqi authorities had chosen to execute former Iraqi leader Sunni Arabs at the haj were shocked at Saddam's hanging which followed his conviction for crimes against humanity against Iraqi Shi'ites. "His execution on the day of Eid ... is an insult to all Muslims," said Jordanian pilgrim Nidal Mohammad Salah. "What happened is not good because as a head of state, he should not be executed." The Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, marks biblical patriarch Abraham's willingness to kill his son for God. Muslim countries often pardon criminals to mark the feast, and prisoners are rarely executed at that time. The death could harden hatred for Shi'ite Muslims in Saudi Arabia, a bastion of Sunni Islam whose Islamic orthodoxy -- known as Wahhabism -- regards Shi'ites as virtual heretics. "This timing was chosen to turn our joy during Eid to sadness. I don't say this for grief over Saddam ... but we must ready ourselves for a new enemy from the East," a user on an Islamist Saddam, a Sunni, was admired by many Arabs for standing up to the United States. Haj authorities fear his death could stoke tensions between Sunni and Shi'ite pilgrims. Eid falls during the 5-day haj, when more than 2 million Muslims from around the world follow ancient rites at the Islamic Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. But many felt Saddam's execution would only worsen sectarian violence in Iraq. "This is unbelievable. Things will not improve in Iraq now that Saddam is dead," said a Syrian pilgrim, Abu Mostafa. "There will be more violence and more Arab anger toward the West." For Iraqi Kurds like Aladdin Suleiman Mohammad, the execution was a "fair decision" regardless of timing, though it dashed hopes of justice for crimes against Kurds. Saddam's second trial on charges of war crimes against Iraqi Kurds in what is known as the "Anfal" or "Spoils of War" campaign, had been due to resume next month. But many Arabs said if anyone should be put on trial it was the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government that backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which overthrew Saddam. "They are American collaborators, those in Iraq. They should be executed, not Saddam Hussein." said Mohammad Mousa, on haj from Lebanon. "Saddam Hussein is the most honorable of all of them. He is the most honorable Arab. They will go to hell, he will go to heaven." [With inputs from the Internet] Best regards, Suman Mukherjee India.
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