NBC News: Saddam to be hanged within 36 hours

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I hope the air it live.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Unfortunate

How is it unfortunate?

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Unfortunate

How is it unfortunate?

Perhaps because the opportunity to extract any kind of remorse or recompense from him will die with him.

True--but this will give closure to many people.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Unfortunate

How is it unfortunate?

Perhaps because the opportunity to extract any kind of remorse or recompense from him will die with him.

True--but this will give closure to many people.

Like the war in Iraq itself, you mean?

Didn't follow that

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Unfortunate

How is it unfortunate?

Perhaps because the opportunity to extract any kind of remorse or recompense from him will die with him.

True--but this will give closure to many people.

Like the war in Iraq itself, you mean?

Didn't follow that

Me neither. Joe seems to be of the delusion that we are losing the Iraq war. Obviously he actually believes what the reporters are saying.

Joe, just explain what you said.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

... Please?

You said that this execution will give closure to many people.  My reply was to suggest that perhaps this would lead to closure on the war itself.  It was, however, a semi-facetious statement.

Thank you.

The way it came across to me was that the war was closure--and that wasn't making sense.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Iraqi judge: Saddam Hussein will be executed by Saturday
Updated 12/29/2006 2:00 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this   
 
 
By David Furst, AFP/Getty Images
This file photo shows former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during his trial in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on April 5.


 
  THE WORLD REACTS
 
Comments on the pending execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein:

Saddam's sentencing is "a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law. ... The victims of this regime have received a measure of the justice which many thought would never come."
— President Bush

"The trial of Saddam gives us a chance to see again what the past in Iraq was, the brutality, the tyranny, the hundreds of thousands of people he killed, the wars in which there were a million casualties."
— British Prime Minister Tony Blair

"I think he deserves punishment and sharp and unequivocal punishment. ... But I would say of him what I have to say about anyone who has committed even the most appalling crimes in this country, that I believe the death penalty effectively says there is no room for change and repentance."
— Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

Saddam's execution punishes "a crime with another crime. ... The death penalty is not a natural death. And no one can give death, not even the state."
— Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI's top prelate for justice issues.

"All sections of Iraqi society, as well as the wider international community, have an interest in ensuring that a death sentence provided for in Iraqi law is only imposed following a trial and appeal process that is, and is legitimately seen as, fair, credible and impartial. That is especially so in a case as exceptional as this one."
— Louise Arbour, U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

Source: Associated Press
 


BAGHDAD (AP) — Saddam Hussein will be executed no later than Saturday, said an Iraqi judge authorized to attend his hanging, and American and Iraqi officials said the deposed president was still in the hands of American guards.
ON DEADLINE: How soon will Saddam be hanged?

The physical transfer of Saddam to Iraqi authorities is one of the last steps before his hanging.

"Saddam Hussein has not been turned over to Iraqi authorities," a U.S. official said Friday night on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A senior Iraqi government official said a meeting would be held around 10 p.m. Baghdad time (1900 GMT) between officials from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office and U.S. officials to set a time for the execution.

Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said he was ready to attend the execution.

"All the measures have been done," Haddad said. "There is no reason for delays."

Al-Maliki has signed Saddam's death sentence, the same senior Iraqi official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

"We have agreed with the Americans that the handover will take place only a few minutes before he is executed," the official said.

Saddam's lawyers issued a statement Friday calling on "everybody to do everything to stop this unfair execution." The statement also said the former president had been transferred from U.S. custody, though American and Iraqi officials later denied that. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

Al-Maliki said opposing Saddam's execution was an insult to his victims. His office said he made the remarks in a meeting with families of people who died during Saddam's rule.

"Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence," al-Maliki said.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. forces were on high alert.

"They'll obviously take into account social dimensions that could potentially led to an increase in violence which certainly would include carrying out the sentence of Saddam Hussein," Whitman said.

On Thursday, two half brothers visited Saddam in his cell, a member of the former dictator's defense team, Badee Izzat Aref, told The Associated Press by telephone from the United Arab Emirates. He said the former dictator handed them his personal belongings.

A senior official at the Iraqi defense ministry also confirmed the meeting and said Saddam gave his will to one of his half brothers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Saddam's lawyers later issued a statement saying the Americans gave permission for his belongings to be retrieved.

An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence Tuesday for the killing of 148 people who were detained after an attempt to assassinate him in the northern Iraqi city of Dujail in 1982. The court said the former president should be hanged within 30 days.

There have been disagreements among Iraqi officials in recent days as to whether Iraqi law dictates the execution must take place within 30 days and whether President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies have to approve it.

In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis."

"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam," said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, the dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition.

With at least 72 more Iraqis killed Thursday in violence, U.S. officials and Iraqis expressed concern about the potential for even worse bloodshed following Saddam's execution.

In the latest violence, a suicide bomber killed nine people near a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad on Friday, police said. A round of mortar shells also slammed into al-Maidan square in central Baghdad, wounding ten people and damaging shops and buildings in the area, police said.

Gunmen killed two employees of an oil company and another civilian in Mosul, northwest of Baghdad. Two civilians and a policeman were fatally shot in separate attacks in Musayyib, about south of the capital, police said.

U.S. troops, meanwhile, killed six people and destroyed a weapons cache in separate raids in Baghdad and northwest of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military said.

One of the raids targeted two buildings in the village of Thar Thar, where U.S. troops found 16 pounds of homemade explosives, two large bombs, a rocket-propelled grenade, suicide vests and multiple batteries, the military said.

Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops also captured 13 suspects and confiscated weapons in a raid on a mosque southeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday.


Update:--I believe that he has been handed over to the Iraqis.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Me neither. Joe seems to be of the delusion that we are losing the Iraq war. Obviously he actually believes what the reporters are saying.

And most of the government, too.  Who else is there to believe?

Also, if I apparently can't believe what those evil reporters (boohissboohiss) are saying on the subject, whom should I listen to for information instead?  My clairvoyancy isn't exactly up to scratch these days.

Believe the soldiers who are there on the ground who see whats going on every day. I know quite a few who were there and what they've seen compared to what the media says is night & day. Can you actually expect reporters to ever give POSITIVE news?

What kinda positive news do you want? That hospitals and schools are being rebuilt?  That more families have running water and electricity?  That people can go out at night and not worry about getting car-bombed?--no, wait, scratch that one....
Fact of the matter is that they had those things before this war ever started.  Saddam is a sack of crap Hitler-wannabe, but he provided for his people-at most we're working under the 'you break it, you buy it' foreign policy that's costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives. 

Bullsh!t. For certain favored Sunni Arab groups, yes. For the vast bulk of the population, Sunni Kurd and Shi'i Arab alike, not even remotely.

I agree--to MOST--he is hated.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Honestly... I look at this footage on Fox... and I tried to feel sorry for him, I really, didn.  I tired to feel compassion and humanity, but I just can't.  I can't feel sorry for anyone who has done those things.  I know that makes me a bad Christian, but I just can't.

^^^^^^^