WOW, talk about swift justice. Dude aint trying to go, either.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16384738/?GT1=8816

Now some questions that they need to answer:


[*]Who is responsible for the timing of this execution, and why the haste?

[*]The crime for which Saddam has been sentenced to death is horrific, but not the most horrific of all those of which he has been accused. Does his execution for a lesser crime absolve him of legal responsibility for the greater crimes for which he will remain untried?

[*]After his death, who will be held responsible for the genocidal death of thousands of Iraqis under Saddam's rule, now that he can no longer stand trial? Will his accomplices be brought to justice? Under what legal system?

[*]Will Saddam's execution for a lesser crime mean that the complicity of foreign countries in enabling his atrocities will never have to face court scrutiny?

[*]How does the court proceeding under which he has been tried and executed further the truth and reconciliation necessary for Iraq's survival?

Black_Power wrote: It's been done.

Canada is ****ed.

I do. I dont think killing him was right. What has he done that Americans havt done in Horishima and Nagasaki or the Arpatheid regime in SouthAfrica?? Sickening, anyway, I can say this because my family wasnt gassed by Saddam, maybe I will have felt different. But I felt sick seeing his dead body on sky.

SpiritualONE wrote: Oh Dear its started already eh??

Well you know its totally possible as there must be at least 1000 people men and women who look exactly like him...hell theres a man who works in my local Tesco who looks like him!

Plus plastic surgery is soooooo advanced these days,ANYTHING can be done.

Also they keep describing him as a broken and afraid man as he approached the gallows..WHAT A JOKE! I doubt I will ever in my life witness a calmer looking face on anyone who is about to be hanged,he went out like a ****ing trooper.

But of course the media always have to put their own spin on things...even when we are confonted with the ezact opposite of what they say happened....they will have you believe that he went out like a bitch.

Not in favour of his execution at all,death is not a punishment,its a release.....far better for him to suffer the rest of his days in a cramped cell for the crimes he is alledged to have committed.

Plus what's the States gonna do now that it doesnt have a visible bogeyman to blame all the worlds ills on??

Who have they got lined up next to be the global figure of hate??

Everything done to Sadam has been to maximise his public humiliation. They could have killed him when they caught him cowering in his rat hole. For the execution they could have shot or injected him. Don't watch the trial, his sentence to be hanged was determined even before the invasion.


Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq In a last act of defiance Saddam Hussein refused to wear a hood
Iraqi TV images Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at a secure facility in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity. Iraqi TV said the execution took place just before 0600 local time (0300GMT). A representative of the prime minister and a Sunni Muslim cleric were present.
Footage of him being led to the gallows was later shown on Iraqi state TV.
Two co-defendants, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and a former chief judge, are to be executed at a later date.
All three were sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5 November after a year-long trial over the killings of 148 Shias from the town of Dujail in the 1980s.
In a statement, Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, said the execution had closed a dark chapter in Iraq's history.
"Justice, in the name of the people, has carried out the death sentence against the criminal Saddam, who faced his fate like all tyrants, frightened and terrified during a hard day which he did not expect," it read.
Holding Koran
A small group of Iraqis witnessed the execution inside a building at an Iraqi compound known by the Americans as Camp Justice, a secure facility in the northern Baghdad suburb of Khadimiya.
We took him to the gallows and he was saying some few slogans. He was very, very, very, broken Mouwafak al-Rubaie
Iraq National Security Adviser
Saddam's last moments In pictures: Execution reaction
They watched as a judge read out the sentence to Saddam Hussein, 69. The former Iraqi leader was carrying a copy of the Koran and asked for it to be given to a friend.
Footage broadcast later on Iraqi state TV showed a subdued Saddam Hussein being led to gallows by a group of masked men.
He was dressed in a white shirt and dark overcoat, rather than prison garb.
Saddam Hussein was led up onto the gallows platform and a dark piece of cloth placed around his neck, followed by the noose.
When the hangman stepped forward to put the hood over his head, Saddam Hussein made it clear he wanted to die without it.
The hanging itself was not broadcast.
They felt very proud as they saw their father facing his executioners so bravely Spokeswoman for Saddam Hussein's daughters
Reaction in quotes Insurgency to outlive Saddam Timeline: Saddam's Iraq Media comments The execution procedure took just a few minutes.
Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, who witnessed the execution, told the BBC that the former leader went to the gallows quietly:
"We took him to the gallows and he was saying some few slogans. He was very, very, very, broken."
In other developments:

• US troops and Iraqi security forces are put on high alert and security is increased at US embassies around the world
  
• Three car bombs go off in quick succession in a mainly Shia Baghdad district, killing at leat 15 people and injuring 25 others, Iraqi officials say
  
• A bomb explodes in a market place in the mainly Shia city of Kufa, in southern Iraq, killing at least 31 people and injuring 25
  
• The US military says that a US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Friday and three marines died from wounds suffered in combat in Iraq's western Anbar province

Images of Saddam Hussein's body were also broadcast on Iraqi TV, still dressed in his overcoat and wrapped in a white sheet.
Saddam Hussein's rule
In pictures
His body is reported to have been flown by helicopter to an unknown location.
Sources close to the Iraqi prime minister said the body would be buried in Iraq, but would not say where.
Saddam Hussein's daughters Raghad and Rana had earlier asked that their father be buried temporarily in Yemen.
According to their spokeswoman, Rasha Oudeh, the two women watched their father's final moments on TV.
"They felt very proud as they saw their father facing his executioners so bravely, standing up," Ms Oudeh said. "They pray that his soul rests in peace."
Mixed reaction
News of Saddam Hussein's execution was announced on state-run Iraqiya television, as patriotic music and images of national monuments were played out.
It is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself US President George W Bush
It initially said his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar were also hanged, but Mr Rubaie later said only Saddam Hussein was hanged.
The others will be executed some time after the Eid festival ends next week, he said.
Other Arab TV stations aired live footage of the sunrise over Baghdad's Firdous Square, where US Marines pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein, after he was deposed in April 2003.

There were jubilant scenes in the Baghdad Shia stronghold of Sadr City, with people dancing in the streets and sounding their car horns, and in the southern city of Basra.
But in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, the news sparked protests from supporters.
'Held to account'
US President George W Bush hailed the execution as "an important milestone" on the road to building an Iraqi democracy, but warned it would not end the deadly violence there.
I feel saddened by the death of Saddam, not because he deserved to live but because it is taking place under US occupation of Iraq Nafeesa Zafar, Pakistan
Saddam death: Your reaction
He said: "It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial.
"It 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."
UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett welcomed the fact that Saddam Hussein had been tried by an Iraqi court "for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed" and said "he has now been held to account".
France called on Iraqis to "look towards the future and work towards reconciliation and national unity".