UPDATE: 9:11 — Ding Dong, the Evil Dictator is Dead!
UPDATE: 9:08 — MSNBC announces that there are reports that Saddam is dead.
UPDATE: 8:59 — FOX News reporting that Saddam has arrived at the execution site, and the hanging will take place within minutes…
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Ok, it hasn’t happened yet.
As I write this post (8:16 p.m. CST), the official news hasn’t been announced. But, it’s reported that Saddam will swing sometime within the next hour.
The US is ensuring that Saddam is afforded much more dignity and respect than any one of his victims ever received:
An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Friday EST. The time was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said the adviser, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
“Saddam will be handed over shortly before the execution,” the official said. The physical transfer of Saddam from U.S. to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged. Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003.
Al-Nueimi said U.S. authorities were maintaining physical custody of Saddam to prevent him from being humiliated before his execution. He said the Americans also want to prevent the mutilation of his corpse, as has happened to other deposed Iraqi leaders.
“The Americans want him to be hanged respectfully,” al-Nueimi said. If Saddam is humiliated publicly or his corpse ill-treated “that could cause an uprising and the Americans would be blamed,” he said.
Jules Crittenden has a great post on the pending hanging of Saddam, including this bit of wisdom:
We all know the enormity of his crimes, and many of us know men and women who are dead because of him. But the only satisfaction I’ll feel with his death is to know that there is still justice that is carried to termination and not cynically subverted in this world. It is only more death on top of death after that.
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I’m watching Hannity and Colmes right now on FOX News (8:24 p.m.), and Alan Colmes is trying his hardest to make the case for sparing the life of Saddam; it’s a rather disgusting display. He’s as riled up as I’ve seen him in a long time — he’s outraged that Saddam is about to meet true justice. I think Sean Hannity is about to punch him in the mouth.
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MORE (8:56) — this comment at Hullabaloo seems to be the consensus of what I’m finding on the liberal blogs:
I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit. And I especially don’t like that it’s being done in my name, on my dime. This is all about Bush jr proving to his dad what a man he is. I haven’t given much thought to what the appropriate punishment for Saddam would be. But this trial, and this punishment at this time makes me ill.
What a bunch of pussies.
I don’t doubt that you’ll be able to trawl for posts that reflexively oppose the execution but I believe most people can see his guilt.
However, I believe the prosecution made a mistake by condemning him to death for a relatively small portion of the crimes he has been accused of. Furthermore by not conducting the trial in an exceedingly professional manner it will leave the door open for his supporters to claim he was framed.
This trial may once again provide evidence that providing rights to the accused is not ’soft on crime’ but in fact enhances the rule of law.
In any case, now that George Bush doesn’t have to fear Saddam’s release maybe US troops can come home.
If he was tried for all his crimes, the trial would have lasted a decade. That is not justice. And the trial was conducted in a professional manner, despite the fact that Saddam had attorneys and judges murdered, despite all his shouting, despite all the in court demonstrations of his attorneys. Don’t act like a clown than whine that the trial was a circus. Personally, I would have preferred that he “died while trying to escape” when he was first taken into custody. Still, the world is definitely a much better place without him. I can’t stop thinking of all those children he had tortured.