Execution
Memories Refuse
To Go Away
By Dahr Jamail &
Ali al-Fadhily
07 January, 2007
Inter
Press Service
BAGHDAD, Jan. 5 (IPS)
- The footage of the execution of Saddam Hussein has generated controversy
in Iraq that is refusing to die down.
Footage of Saddam's last
moments, taken by an onlooker with a mobile phone, shows the former
dictator appearing calm and composed while dealing with taunts from
witnesses below him. The audio reveals several men praising the Shia
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Mohammed Bakr al-Sadr, founder of the Shia
Dawa Party, who was killed by Saddam in 1980.
"Peace be upon Muhammad
and his followers," shouted someone near the person who filmed
the events. "Curse his enemies and make victorious his son Muqtada!
Muqtada! Muqtada." These chants are commonly used by members of
Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia..
There has been a huge international
backlash to the footage. In India millions of Muslims demonstrated against
the execution being carried out during the sacred festival of Eid.
Across Iraq, Shias seem mostly
pleased. "Of course things will be better now that Saddam is dead,"
Saed Abdul-Hussain, a cleric from the Shia dominated city Najaf told
IPS in Baghdad. "It is like hitting the snake on the head and I
hope his followers will hand over their weapons and accept the fact
that they lost."
But few believe that Saddam
was inspiring the armed resistance.
"Who is Saddam and why
would he affect anything after his death," a 55-year-old teacher
from Fallujah told IPS. "The idea of his leading the resistance
from jail is too ridiculous for a sane man to believe. We know that
Mujahideen (holy warriors) are the only ones who will kick the occupation
out of the country."
Others believe unity between
Iraqis is the only answer to the occupation.
"Saddam was terminated
the day he was captured by occupation forces," Salah al-Dulaimy
from Ramadi told IPS. "Things will continue to be as bad as they
are for both Iraqis and Americans because nothing has really changed.
A president who was removed from power four years ago is just an ordinary
man although the way he was executed and the timing of the execution
was a blessing to so many Iraqis, who realised the necessity of being
united no matter what religion and sect they belong to."
Facing broadening criticism
over release of the mobile phone footage, the Iraqi government arrested
a guard accused of filming the execution. Iraqi officials said on Wednesday
that the execution chamber was infiltrated by outsiders bent on inflaming
sectarian tensions.
"Whoever leaked this
video meant to harm national reconciliation and drive a wedge between
Shias and Sunnis," National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie,
who was among 20 officials and other witnesses present at the execution
at dawn last Saturday told reporters.
Rubaie later insisted that
there was nothing improper about the shouting from the crowd, or the
fact that executioners and officials danced around Saddam's body. "This
is the tradition of the Iraqis, when they do something, they dance around
the body and they express their feelings," he said in an interview
to CNN.
A senior Interior Ministry
official told reporters that the hanging was supposed to be carried
out by hangmen employed by the Interior Ministry but that "militias"
had managed to infiltrate the executioners' team.
The airing of the footage
has further damaged the government of embattled Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki and possibilities of reconciliation between political and
sectarian groups in Iraq.
On Thursday the Iraqi government
postponed the hanging of two of Saddam Hussein's companions. Barzan
Ibrahim al-Tikrit, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief,
along with Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, head of Saddam's revolutionary court,
were to have been hanged Thursday.
A senior official from Maliki's
office told a reporter that the executions were postponed "due
to international pressure."
U.S. Presidential press secretary
Tony Snow, formerly of Fox News, dismissed calls to join international
condemnation of Saddam Hussein's execution. "The government is
investigating the conduct of some people within the chamber and I think
we'll leave it at that," Snow told reporters. "But the one
thing you got to keep in mind is that you got justice."
The U.S. military claims
it had no control over the events at the execution, despite handing
Saddam over to Iraqi authorities just minutes before the footage was
taken. The U.S. military then transported the body to Tikrit where it
was later buried.
Many Iraqis simply want the
bloodshed and chaos that has engulfed their country to end.
"I just pray to Allah
to stop the bleeding that started when those strangers came into our
country," 65-year-old Ahmed Alwan from Baghdad told IPS. "There
is no future for us to think about under such a mess, and killing Saddam
will just add more hatred between Iraqis, especially with the savage
comments that appeared on the video."
Most Iraqis seem skeptical
of the current U.S.-backed Iraqi government, which has been unable to
restore even basic services, let alone security.
"Our government thought
they could fool us again by killing the man," 30-year-old grocer
Atwan in the Hurriya district of Baghdad told IPS. "We have had
enough and what we demand is a real change, or else we will take another
course regardless of what our religious and political leaders tell us.
What we want is a better life and real brotherhood between Iraqis."
(Ali al-Fadhily is our Baghdad correspondent. Dahr Jamail is our specialist
writer who has spent eight months reporting from inside Iraq and has
been covering the Middle East for several years.)
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