Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Saddam death scenes 'deplorable'

The Deputy Leader of the British Labour Party, John Prescott, has called the circumstances surrounding Saddam Hussein's hanging "deplorable" and said that the people involved "should be ashamed of themselves".

As I reported yesterday, the scenes just before Saddam was hanged were in reality very different once the sound - which was excluded from the official version - could be heard. The second video, which was obviously taken using a mobile phone, tells a very different story from the first.

And unlike the official film, which was released on Saturday, the second video shows the moment that the gallows trapdoor opens, sending Saddam Hussein to his death.

It also has images of Saddam Hussein's face as he swings dead from the noose.

The amateur footage first appeared on websites and then excerpts began airing on major news channels.

The darkened scene is frequently lit up by flashes from people taking photographs.

While Saddam was professing Muhammad as God's prophet, he was interrupted by shouts. One of the people observing the execution chants "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada". Saddam dismissively repeats the name Moqtada. The noose around his neck, he appears to smile and shoots back: "Do you consider this bravery?"

Another voice shouts at him to "Go to hell". Saddam, seemingly accusing his enemies of destroying the country he once led, replies: "The hell that is Iraq?"


A Shia shouts "Long live Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr," a member of Moqtada's family thought to have been assassinated by Saddam's security services. Another onlooker pleads for dignity: "Please don't, the man is facing execution. Please don't. I beg you, no!"
Those who hoped that this would show the new Iraq dispensing with a dictator would have been bitterly disappointed at a scene that is best described as a lynching. It is hard to believe that the scenes witnessed were carried out by the state as opposed to a criminal gang. Indeed, with all of the men surrounding him wearing masks it actually looked like some of the execution tapes released by Zarqawi and his gang.

Blair, one of the architects of the war, or at the very least the man most loyally following in Bush's footsteps has come under criticism for failing to make any statement about the execution. Indeed, Prescott is saying what many Labour MP's must be thinking. The execution was a travesty of justice, a shameful debacle that smacked of mob rule and most Labour MP's will feel soiled that their government was, by implication, involved.

Of course Blair can say nothing lest he undermine Bush's insistence that what we witnessed will aid in the birth process of the new Iraq.
Glenda Jackson branded his lack of public reaction "amazing", while Peter Kilfoyle said it was "yet another error in a long catalogue" on Iraq.

Downing Street said Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett had spoken "on behalf of the whole government" when she gave her reaction to Saddam Hussein's death at the weekend.

She said he had been "held to account", but added: "We do not support the use of the death penalty... we advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime."
Thank God that someone like Prescott is still able to speak for ordinary members of the Labour Party and say that something stinks. Beckett's weasel words give credence to a disgraceful act, Prescott at least puts some distance between the real Labour Party and Blair's disgraceful, spineless followers.

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2 comments:

Sophia said...

The execution, its timing and the way it was done appear more and more calculated by the US to seal the anger of sunnis against Shias. Otherwise how one could explain this barbarism ? As an Arab, I feel also ashamed for those Iraqi Arabs who did this because they are feeding western préjugés against them and especially against Iraq's Shias by casting them as a bunch of savages. Surely those who are left with nothing to defend Iraq's invasion and Bush's and Blair's policies in Iraq (remember Blair,s last argument for the invasion and the maintaining of the troops was to save Iraqis from Chaos and from barabrism and savagery) will finally put the whole balme of the civil war in Iraq on its inhabitants by casting them as uncontrollable savages...
How convenient this execution was to fuel the civil war in Iraq and eventually to serve as an excuse for a 'honorable' exit from Iraq while making sure that the butchery will continue.
Killing and Revenge are coded acts in the local Iraqi culture and the act of casting saddam's execution as a killing and a revenge accomplished by Shias is meant to make sure that both communities will not return in the near future to normal relations and would not coexist in one state...
How convenient and how stupid Moqtada, Sistani and their Shia followers are...

Kel said...

Sophia,

I agree that it fosters the image of Iraqis as savages and can't understand how Maliki and other members of the government allowed this to be the way that Saddam was put to death.

It literally looked like he'd been handed over to a baying mob.

And this can only make reconciliation between Sunnis and Shias even harder to achieve.

As you rightly say, it's almost as if it was designed to foster civil war, although I can't bring myself to believe that this was the intention. I think it's rather Bush and certain Iraqis imagining that their prejudices and hatred is shared by other people. Most of us were appalled by Saddam's actions in life, but most of us could also agree that this was the moment to show what the difference is between a dictator's behaviour and that of a democratic government.

Sadly, the opportunity was missed and they behaved in a way that hardly made one think of a new order in Iraq.

You used the word "savages" and, unfortunately, that was the impression left.