Saddam Hanged

[Laura]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070101/D8MCNASG0.html

Iraq Orders Closure of TV Station Office

Jan 1, 3:55 PM (ET)

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The Iraqi government Monday ordered the closure of the Baghdad office of a Dubai-based television station whose newscaster wore black mourning clothes while reporting on the hanging of Hussein.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the Al-Sharqiya station, owned by a former chief of radio and television for Saddam, had incited violence and hatred in its coverage and had ignored warnings to stop.

Brigadier Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman, said the order was issued after an allegedly false report by the news channel about the abduction of three Sunni Arab female students from a university.

But the order also followed criticism of the tone of Al-Sharqiya's coverage of Saturday's execution, which struck some as sympathetic to the ousted dictator.

In contrast to state-run television reports that described Saddam as a "tyrant" and "criminal," a newscaster on Al-Sharqiya - which means "The Eastern One" - referred to him Sunday as "president."

Iraq's government is dominated by the country's Shiite Muslim majority. Al-Sharqiya is sometimes mocked by critics as "Al-Baathiya" for its alleged sympathies for Saddam's outlawed Baath Party, which had helped Iraq's Sunni minority rule the country.

Shiite and Sunni are now locked in a sectarian war that has claimed thousands of lives.

It's not clear how the closure might effect Al-Sharqiya, which broadcasts to Iraq from Dubai by satellite.

Al-Sharqiya reported Monday night that its offices in Baghdad were raided and sealed by Iraqi authorities. But the station said those offices were vacated three months ago in response to attacks on staff.

Al-Sharqiya remained on the air Monday, broadcasting video of a protest against Saddam's execution that was staged by the Professional Associations - an umbrella group of unions representing doctors, engineers and lawyers - at the group's offices in Amman, Jordan.

Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad, briefly attended the demonstration in her first public appearance since his execution.

State-run Al-Iraqiya may have referred to the controversy over Al-Sharqiya's coverage, when it criticized reporting on Saddam's death by rival Iraqi and regional Arab television stations.

"The execution of Saddam unveiled the many masks of those who don't like to see a strong, civilized and developed Iraq," an Al-Iraqiya newscaster said Monday. "The male and female news readers of some Arab and Iraqi satellite channels rushed to their cupboards to wear their black clothes, announcing their sorrow about the joy of Iraqis."

Newscasters on the influential Al-Jazeera satellite channel also wore black in the aftermath of Saddam's hanging.

The government did not specifically cite the controversy over Al-Sharqiya's coverage of Saddam's execution in explaining the closure.

"We had sent many warnings to the channel previously, but it insisted on circulating false news that provoked violence and hatred," said Khalaf, the interior ministry spokesman.

On Nov. 30, the Interior Ministry said it had formed a special unit to monitor news coverage and vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories the ministry deemed to be incorrect. The ministry runs the Iraqi national police and a separate paramilitary force.

The purpose of the monitoring unit, Khalaf said at the time, was to find "fabricated and false news that hurts and gives the Iraqis a wrong picture that the security situation is very bad, when the facts are totally different."

Al-Sharqiya's programming includes a number of Iraqi soap operas. Its owner, Saad al-Bazzaz, fled Iraq years before Saddam's fall and returned after the regime collapsed.

Prominent employees of Al-Sharqiya have fallen victim to Iraq's violence. Those slain include correspondent Ahmed al-Rasheed, and Walid Hassan, a famous comedian who was shot while driving in western Baghdad.

Hassan had performed in a comedy series called "Caricature," which mocked coalition forces and Iraqi governments since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

 

[Laura]

http://www.alternet.org/stories/46143/

Silencing Saddam

By Robert Scheer, AlterNet. Posted January 1, 2007.

Did Saddam die because he knew too much about the United States' real role in Iraq?

It is a very frightening precedent that the United States can invade a country on false pretenses, depose its leader and summarily execute him without an international trial or appeals process. This is about vengeance, not justice, for if it were the latter the existing international norms would have been observed. The trial should have been overseen by the World Court, in a country that could have guaranteed the safety of defense lawyers, who, in this case, were killed or otherwise intimidated.

The irony here is that the crimes for which Saddam Hussein was convicted occurred before the United States, in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, embraced him. Those crimes were well known to have occurred 15 months before Rumsfeld visited Iraq to usher in an alliance between the United States and Saddam to defeat Iran.

The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States' role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush's father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime.

At Nuremberg in the wake of World War II the U.S. set the bar very high by declaring that even the Nazis, who had committed the most heinous of crimes, should have a fair trial. The U.S. and allies insisted on this not to serve those charged, but to educate the public through a believable accounting. In the case of Saddam, the bar was lowered to the mud, with the proceedings turned into a political circus reminiscent of Stalin's show trials.

 

[Laura]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/46145/

Bush handed Saddam to sectarian lynch mob

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 4:19 PM on January 1, 2007.

The video to the right is a censored version of the Saddam execution you can find just about anywhere on the web right now. If you must see the actual execution, go HERE.


I post it so you can hear for yourself its most important aspect. Toward the end of the clip, you can make out deafening shouts of "Muqtada," indicating to the entire Muslim world and beyond that Saddam was essentially handed over to a Shi'ite militia to kill their enemy, a Sunni.

The Bush admin has spent years telling everyone who would listen that the Unity government of Iraq (Sunni and Shi'ite) would thrive, that Democracy would flourish, that -- as Josh details exhaustively -- success lay just around the bend.

Josh Marshall, asking whether we'll look back on this as "a signal of American power or weakness," notes that this sham is an American job from start till... juuuuust before the finish, when we handed Saddam over to Iraqi Shi'ites to do the killing. And this, after the trial for relatively small crimes, with a sentencing date ever so suspiciously timed to U.S. elections...

So now, apart from the fading hope for some actual justice for the victims of Saddam's war crimes (in the form of some investigation and revelation of facts), the Bush Administration's bungling ways continue by fanning the flames of the Iraqi Civil War, endangering everyone in the region, our soldiers included.

One Arab diplomat put it this way: "This footage is going to antagonize Sunnis throughout the Middle East... It's one thing for Sunnis to read about al-Sadr's followers gloating. It's far more upsetting to watch and hear them do it."

Asked by Tim Russert "What impact do you believe his execution will have short term, long term on the security situation in Iraq?," NBC correspondent Richard Engel grimly replied: "Frankly, tim, I don’t think that it will have a tremendous impact...The fact that this video and the execution itself were tinged by such sectarian overtones, that could fuel the much more greater problem in this country which is the civil war."

 

[Laura]

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

A Lynching...

By Riverbend - Iraqi Girl Blog

12/31/06 "Baghdad Burning" -- -- It's official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It's outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.

This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we'd at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We've spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.

America the savior… After nearly four years and Bush's biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.

Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation. He's like a vulture in a suit (or a balding weasel). It's almost embarrassing. I kept expecting Muwafaq Al Rubaii to run over and wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth as he signed for the execution. Are these the people who represent the New Iraq? We're in so much more trouble than I ever thought.

And no- not the celebrations BBC are claiming. With the exception of a few areas, the streets are empty.

Now we come to CNN. Shame on you CNN journalists- you're getting lazy. The least you can do is get the last words correct when you write a story about an execution. Your articles are read the world over and will go down in history as references. You people are the biggest news network in the world- the least you can do is spend some money on a decent translator. Saddam's last words were NOT "Muqtada Al Sadr" as Munir Haddad claimed, according to the article below. If anyone had seen at least part of the video they showed on TV, you'd know that.

"A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of the executioners told Hussein that the former dictator had destroyed Iraq, which sparked an argument that was joined by several government officials in the room.

As a noose was tightened around Hussein's neck, one of the executioners yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr," Haddad said, referring to the powerful anti-American Shiite religious leader.

Hussein, a Sunni, uttered one last phrase before he died, saying "Muqtada al-Sadr" in a mocking tone, according to Haddad's account."

From the video that was leaked, it was not an executioner who yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr". See, this is another low the Maliki government sunk to- they had some hecklers conveniently standing by during the execution. Maliki claimed they were "some witnesses from the trial", but they were, very obviously, hecklers. The moment the noose was around Saddam's neck, they began chanting, in unison, "God's prayers be on Mohamed and on Mohamed's family…" Something else I didn't quite catch (but it was very coordinated), and then "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada!" One of them called out to Saddam, "Go to hell…" (in Arabic). Saddam looked down disdainfully and answered "Heya hay il marjala…?" which is basically saying, "Is this your manhood…?".

Someone half-heartedly called out to the hecklers, "I beg you, I beg you- the man is being executed!" They were slightly quieter and then Saddam stood and said, "Ashadu an la ilaha ila Allah, wa ashhadu ana Mohammedun rasool Allah…" Which means, "I witness there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is His messenger." These are the words a Muslim (Sunnis and Shia alike) should say on their deathbed. He repeated this one more time, very clearly, but before he could finish it, he was lynched.

So, no, CNN, his last words were not "Muqtada Al Sadr" in a mocking tone- just thought someone should clear that up. (Really people, six of you contributed to that article!)

Then again, one could argue that it was a judge who gave them that false information. A judge on the Iraqi appeals court- one of the judges who ratified the execution order. Everyone knows Iraqi judges under American tutelage never lie- that explains CNN's confusion.

Muwafaq Al Rubai was said he was "weak and frightened". Apparently, Rubai saw a different lynching because according to the video they leaked, he didn't look frightened at all. His voice didn't shake and he refused to put on the black hood. He looked resigned to his fate, and during the heckling he looked as defiant as ever. (It's quite a contrast to Muhsin Abdul Hameed's public hysterics last year when the Americans raided his home.)

It's one thing to have militias participating in killings. This is allegedly the democracy the Americans flaunt. Is this how bloodthirsty and frightening we've become? Is this what Iraq stands for now? Executions? I'm sure the rest of the Arab countries will be impressed.

One of the most advanced countries in the world did not help to reconstruct Iraq, they didn't even help produce a decent constitution. They did, however, contribute nicely to a kangaroo court and a lynching. A lynching shall go down in history as America's biggest accomplishment in Iraq. So who's next? Who hangs for the hundreds of thousands who've died as a direct result of this war and occupation? Bush? Blair? Maliki? Jaffari? Allawi? Chalabi?

2006 has definitely been representative of Maliki and his government- killings like never before and a lynching to end it properly. Death and destruction everywhere. I'm so tired of all of this…

 

[Laura]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1980775,00.html

Conveniently forgotten

Saddam committed most of his crimes when he was an ally of those who now occupy his country

By Tariq Ali

01/01/07 "The Guardian" --- It was symbolic that 2006 ended with a colonial hanging - most of it shown on state television in occupied Iraq. It has been that sort of year in the Arab world. The trial was so blatantly rigged that even Human Rights Watch had to condemn it as a travesty. Judges were changed on Washington's orders, defence lawyers were killed and the whole procedure resembled a well orchestrated lynch mob. Where Nuremberg was a relatively dignified application of victor's justice, Saddam Hussein's trial was the crudest and most grotesque to date.

The great thinker-president's reference to it "as a milestone on the road to Iraqi democracy" is as clear an indication as any that Washington pressed the trigger. The leaders of the European Union, supposedly hostile to capital punishment, were passive, as usual.
Although some Shia factions celebrated in Baghdad, the figures published by a fairly independent establishment outfit, the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, reveal that more than 80% of Iraqis feel the situation in the country was better before it was occupied. (The ICRSS research is based on detailed house-to-house interviewing carried out during the third week of November.) Only 5% of those questioned said Iraq is better today than in 2003; 12% felt things had improved and 9% said there was no change. Unsurprisingly, 95% felt the security situation was worse than before.

Add to this the figures supplied by the United Nations high commissioner for refugees: 1.6 million Iraqis (7% of the population) have fled the country since March 2003, and 100,000 leave every month - Christians, doctors, engineers, women. There are 1 million Iraqis in Syria, 750,000 in Jordan, 150,000 in Cairo. These are refugees who do not excite the sympathy of western public opinion, since the US - EU-backed - occupation is the cause. Perhaps it was these statistics, and estimates of a million Iraqi dead, that necessitated the execution of Saddam.

That Saddam was a tyrant is beyond dispute, but what is conveniently forgotten is that most of his crimes were committed when he was a staunch ally of those who are now occupying the country. It was, as he admitted in one of his trial outbursts, the approval of Washington and the poison gas supplied by what was then West Germany that gave him the confidence to douse Halabja with chemicals in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam deserved a proper trial and punishment in an independent Iraq. Not this.

The double standards applied by the west never cease to astonish. Indonesia's Suharto, who presided over a mountain of corpses, was protected by Washington. He never annoyed them as much as Saddam.

And what of those who have created the mess in Iraq today? The torturers of Abu Ghraib; the pitiless butchers of Falluja; the ethnic cleansers of Baghdad; the Kurdish prison boss who boasts that his model is Guantánamo. Will Bush and Blair ever be tried for war crimes? Doubtful. And former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar? He is currently employed as a lecturer at Georgetown University, in Washington, where the language of instruction is of course English - of which he hardly speaks a word.

Saddam's lynching might send a shiver down the spines of the Arab ruling elites. If Saddam can be hanged, so can the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, the Hashemite joker in Amman and the Saudi royals - as long as those who topple them are happy to play ball with the United States.

Tariq Ali is the author of Bush in Babylon: the recolonisation of Iraq - tariq.ali3@btinternet.com

 

[Laura]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MOH20070101&articleId=4273

The Barbaric Lynching of President Saddam Hussein
Press Statement

By Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad

01/01/07 "Global Research" -- -- On the Holy day of Eid, the world watched in horror at the barbaric lynching of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, allegedly for crimes against humanity. This public murder was sanctioned by the War Criminals, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair.

This sadistic act broadcasted to the whole world is a travesty of justice, and was meant to demonstrate the imperial power of the United States and serves as a warning to peace loving peoples that we must either bow to the dictates of the Bush regime or face the consequences of a public lynching.

The lynching was also an insult to all Muslims, as it occurred on the Holy Day of Eid, whereby Muslims devote themselves to prayer and forgiveness. It is all too clear that the war criminal Bush has no sensitivities whatsoever for Muslims on their pilgrimage to Mecca. This barbaric act is a sacrilege!

The entire trial process was a mockery of justice, no less a Kangaroo Court. Defence counsels were brutally murdered, witnesses threatened and judges removed for being impartial and replaced by puppet judges. Yet, we are told that Iraq was invaded to promote democracy, freedom and justice.

A peaceful country has now been turned into a war zone. Over 500,000 children died as a result of the criminal economic sanctions, and the latest findings by the medical journal, Lancet reveals that over 650,000 Iraqis have died since the illegal invasion of 2003.

The War Criminal Bush has killed more Iraqis than President Saddam ever did, if in fact he was guilty of any crime. If President Saddam Hussein is guilty of war crimes, then the world must find Bush, Blair and Howard equally guilty and the International Criminal Court cannot but prosecute these war criminals. The inaction thus far by the International Criminal Court against Bush, Blair and Howard exposes the double standard of the said Court, when it does not hesitate to prosecute war crimes committed in Dalfur, Rwanda and Kosovo.

If we support human rights and justice, we must condemn this barbaric lynching of President Saddam Hussein. There can be no excuse whatsoever for this injustice under any circumstances. War Criminal Bush and the puppet regime in Iraq have made a mockery of the Rule of Law.

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad -Member of the International Committee, For the Defence of President Saddam Hussein,
30th December 2006

 

[Laura]

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1167439871.html

The western anti war movement - the left boot of imperialism?

By Kola Odetola

01/01/06 "Media Lens" -- -- The silence of the western antiwar movement on the lynching of Saddam Hussein is deafening and is increasingly beginning to prove what a lot of discerning people have suspected all along – that the mainstream anti-war movement (including large parts of its left wing) in the west is the well concealed left boot of western imperialism, the conscience of the conqueror.

The main reason given by western radicals – including many on this board for ignoring the assassination of the deposed Iraqi president is the crimes against humanity he has allegedly committed. How many of these ‘left’ activists then would welcome a Chinese invasion of the British Isles, the sacking of British cities, the incarceration and torture of tens of thousands of English youths in concentration camps scattered along the Yorkshire Dales, the murder of a million British citizens (the equivalent of the Iraq dead) if the reason Beijing gave for the invasion was to arrest, try and execute Tony Blair for the limitless war crimes he has directly and indirectly carried out in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine over the last three years – killing in Iraq alone (in 3 years) more than Saddam killed in 35.

Saddam Hussein has not been tried; he has been executed by the west’s leaders, while their ‘radical’ sons look the other way. If a serial killer was brought to trial in the UK and during the trial three of his defence lawyers were kidnapped, tortured and murdered, (clearly by state agents) the media lens message board for one will be heaving with anger and righteous fury, but now there is only silence.

Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but as president of Iraq, he represented something which nobody ever talks about these days, the sovereignty of his nation, by his judicial murder by a foreign invader the sovereignty of every poor third world nation has just been executed. The reason why the left in the west cares so little about that is because the sovereignty of poor nations is as much a threat to them as it is to their ruling circles.

The multi billion pound human rights/NGO industry for one (the new missionaries) are as dominant in the third world as any multinational, and in many ways even more powerful, since they seduce the minds of the natives buying up activists by the barrel load, feeding them with inconsequential facetious drivel about ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ all the better to cement the west’s moral and ideological supremacy over the natives.

Trade unions from the west struggle to organise in the third world to ensure the starving do not go beyond the level of loyal opposition to the western banks and companies that impose the crucifix of hunger on their children. Even the far left get in on the act with an assortment of ‘Mac’Trotskyist groups fighting for the ‘world revolution’ creating so called internationals - a global franchise they dress up as fraternity. The headquarters of the ‘world revolution’ sharing its capital with that of world finance.

The primary contradiction for the last 500 years has not been between classes but between nations, the poor and the rich ones. It has been a struggle by the west to dominate and control the rest of humanity. While the ordinary people in the west do not participate in the oppression willingly, many of them share the same patronising and superior attitudes of their leaders. Thus even when they support the struggles of the oppressed in the poor world it is with conditions and qualifications that are never applied to them when they face similar circumstances.

It is this ingrained and unconscious superiority that made then overlook the humiliation of saddam – checking his hair on camera for lice, something they would have baulked at if it had probably been done on the German Herman Goring – who was treated with great personal dignity – in full uniform and well groomed throughout the trial at Nuremberg as was Slobodan Milosevic another ‘northern tyrant.

People fighting against imperialist enslavement in the poor world should accept the support of western radicals whenever it is forthcoming but should not subordinate the narrative of their struggle to the ‘friends of the people’

 

[Keit]

"Next stage" is already here:

Bush 'to reveal Iraq troop boost'

US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt.

The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces.

The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs.

The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas.

The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.

Its central theme will be sacrifice.

The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers.

The exact mission of the extra troops in Iraq is still under discussion, according to officials, but it is likely to focus on providing security rather than training Iraqi forces.

The proposal, if it comes, will be highly controversial.

Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

The need to find some way of pacifying Iraq has been underlined by statistics revealed by various ministries in the Iraqi government, suggesting that well over 1,000 civilians a month are dying.

 

[Laura]

Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

I guess it's a good sign that we aren't the only ones who are seeing this stupidity for what it is.

 

[anart]

Makes one wonder how many people are going to actually realize how far down the road this dictatorship has already gone - the neo-cons believe no one can stop them, and they might be right. After all, they've been signing in legislation for the past six years to back up this idiot's power, so don't think they don't intend to use it. We'll see - maybe the backlash will be so enormous that they change their plan, but I have to admit that I'll be really surprised to see anything other than a really bad outcome to all of this. =(

 

[domi]

It was always clear that Saddam's fate was sealed from the moment US forces "got 'im", in Paul Bremer's tasteless phrase. He was to be used as a trophy of a mindless and catastrophic war, to redeem America's dented image. But it was also essential to stop him revealing secrets about the west's past enthusiasm in supporting and arming his regime. Hence he was tried on the relatively minor charge of killing 148 people in the village of Dujail, after a plot to assassinate him. Far better to put him away safely for that rather than risk his exposing western hypocrisy, treachery and double-dealing.

Probable scenario and indicative of the way of thinking of deviants who don't want to be exposed.

What a wasted chance of studying this guy. A normal person with knowledge of deviancy would surely have consired "life imprisonment with service to medical science". Instead of rushing Saddam to a noose, they would have fired up the MRI machine instead.

 

[PopHistorian]

<< the neo-cons believe no one can stop them, and they might be right. >>

Yes. Richard Perle said, interviewed in the film Why We Fight, that it doesn't matter now, regarding foreign policy, if the administration changes. He said that people who think so are wrong. He believes that he and his neocon crew have indelibly changed America and its perceptions forever.

This is an outstanding thread. Laura, that Lobeczewski bit on "negative selection" was spot-on. I mean, look at how the civilian authority in the Green Zone was staffed -- smarts and expertise were ignored in favor of loyalty to the neocon agenda. Imagine being asked at a job interview, "how do you feel about abortion?" Well, the Bush hiring team asked it, according to 60 Minutes.

<< predicated on the idea that Saddam isn't just a game playing psychopath who is secreted away in some island resort laughing his head off >>

What about his secure compound in Belarus? :)
I must say, he looked like a wax dummy in that hanging video.

<< It wouldn't be too hard to get a lookalike person who has some secret that enables them to be somewhat controlled, to play the role, even to being hanged >>

Not to mention the equal ease with which someone could be programmed by ritual abuse to believe they were Saddam. I don't think it would be too hard even to find someone who consciously, willingly agreed to die for "the cause" if he was enough of a Baathist true believer, promised martyrdom, whatever. Any combination of techniques might have been used.

 

[Nienna]

The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.

Its central theme will be sacrifice.

The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers.

I guess we can see who's going to be sacrificed.

You know, I can't help but wonder how Saddam can be found guilty and executed for war crimes when Olbert and Bush are running around stacking up war crimes like they were cords of wood. Who'll stand up and accuse and convict them of all of their war crimes? I know, nobody. Because they are the ones holding the ball.

However, there is a saying; "Nothing lasts forever." I sure hope it's true.

 

[CarpeDiem]

What about his secure compound in Belarus? :)

;) ;)
thought about exactly the same scenario (bon't have any facts, just strong instinct feeling and circumstantial bits of embassy evacuation)
real "Shaddam" or mind-programmed "the double of his double" has been executed - is irrelevant but the impact this hanging in the name of criminal deviants in power. How far in their crimes that defy everything what being a human means they can go without 94% noticing and still happily chewing their reality news popcorn?

 

[Devar]

<http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/01/08/saddam-iraq.html>

Great news for Saddam, now that the charges against him have been dropped since they hanged one of his doubles!