Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is vowing that there will be no delay in the execution of Saddam Hussein. CNN and The New York Times are reporting that the hanging will occur sooner rather than later, perhaps as early as this weekend. According to the Times:
Preparations for the execution of Saddam Hussein began taking on a sense of urgency late Thursday as American and Iraqi officials suggested that he could be hanged within a span of days rather than weeks. […] After upholding the death sentence against Mr. Hussein on Tuesday for the execution of 148 Shiite men and boys in 1982, an Iraqi appeals court ruled that he must be sent to the gallows within 30 days. But Mr. Hussein may not have even that long to live, officials said.
It really seems hard to believe that Saddam Hussein has come to the end of his days. The images of Saddam strutting around in his various palaces prior to Operation Desert Storm are still fresh in my mind. Then, a decade later, we were treated to a 
new flood of images of Hussein—images of a tyrant stubbornly defying a string of U.N. resolutions. And then, when our military went into Iraq to depose Saddam, he simply melted into the shadowy vastness of the Iraqi wastelands (as did his vaunted army). The U.S. military went to great lengths to locate the fugitive former president, but it seemed that our every intelligence effort was rebuffed. Our cruise missiles and bunker busters were delivered on empty targets. It seemed we simply couldn’t kill the man. But then the big break came: Saddam’s own people ratted him out to intelligence officials of the 4th Infantry Division, and a combined unit called Task Force 21 cornered him in a dingy “spider hole” in the ground near his palaces in Tikrit. It was December of 2003. Now, three years later, Saddam Hussein has been tried and convicted by an Iraqi court, his sentence upheld by an Iraqi appeals panel. We have seen the new Iraqi juridical system in action. It conducted itself openly and in full accordance with the rule of Iraqi law. The trail was fair enough (considering the gravity of the crimes), the verdict predictably harsh. The families of Saddam’s countless victims will have their measure of closure when it has been reported that Saddam is finally dead. But only meager solace will be theirs. More from the New York Times article:
Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser, said there would be no advance notice of the execution because of fears that any announcement could set off violence. When asked who would be invited to attend the hanging, Mr. Rubaie said: “No television. No press. Nothing.” […] He said that the execution would be videotaped but that it was unlikely the tape would be released.
More questions will surely follow. Is Saddam dead? Is he really, really dead? And surely the rumors of a conspiracy will grow within the ranks of the Iraqi Shi’a majority. Why was the execution kept secret? Why were we given no proof that the monster is dead? Why should we trust the word of the government? I think the legacy of Saddam’s sinister regime will live on in the hearts of Iraqis for decades to come.
On a lighter note, I found this interesting older video on YouTube this morning. It has no audio track—only an annoying electronic hum. It’s instructive nevertheless.
Such are the vicissitudes of international relations. Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein chumming it up in the “halcyon” days of U.S.-Iraqi relations, eh? I wonder what kind of weapons Donald sold to Saddam on that trip?
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