By Patrick Cockburn - Independent UK - 30 December 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle...icle2112573.ece
QUOTE
Saddam Hussein's death warrant was signed last night. It happened as the nightly curfew brought Baghdad, the city where he exercised supreme power over Iraq for a quarter of a century, to a standstill. The leader who launched two disastrous wars that reshaped the politics of the Middle East and ruined his country waited to be hanged by the Iraqi authorities who had replaced him.
Saddam's principal lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said US officials who have been holding him at Fort Cropper near the airport outside Baghdad had asked him to pick up Saddam's possessions and those of his half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, also facing execution. His two other half- brothers, Watban and Sabawi, visited him on Thursday and he gave them his will.
I first saw Saddam Hussein making a speech on a distant platform in Baghdad in 1978. He was already known as "The Strong Man of Iraq" and the following year he executed several leaders of the ruling Baath party who were opposed to him becoming the all-powerful president.
Criticism of the leader and his family was highly dangerous. People in cafés in Baghdad were nervous if they accidentally spilled their coffee on their newspaper. They feared they might be accused of deliberately defacing the picture of Saddam Hussein that invariably appeared on the front page.
He wanted to be a world historical figure and in a way he achieved his ambition. He compared himself to the great heroes of the Iraqi past, such as Sargon of Akkad, Nebuchadnezzar and Saladin. At the height of the Iran-Iraq War, when resources were strained in Iraq, he rebuilt part of ancient Babylon with ugly yellowed bricks, on each of which was printed his name.
Surprisingly he succeeded in making the world ring with his name. But he did so through defeat and not victory. In 1980 he invaded Iran and started an eight-year-long war in which one million Iraqis and Iranians were killed and wounded. In 1990 he occupied Kuwait and was defeated by US-led forces.
Saddam destroyed his own country. When he came to power it had oil, money, a competent administration and a well-educated population. He left it in ruins. He inflicted on his people years of war that still show no sign of ending. UN sanctions from 1990 to 2003 so weakened the Iraqi state that it disintegrated with Saddam's overthrow.
He was cruel by nature. But he was also the product of a violent, deeply divided country. A Sunni himself, he always represented the minority of Iraq's population who only held power by force. Although he portrayed himself as a soldier, his real skills were as a secret policeman, tightening security measures against potential plotters. Even at the height of his power, tank brigades around Baghdad were issued with only a few rounds of ammunition to prevent them mounting a coup against him.
The Iraq Saddam ruled was a bizarre mixture of ancient and modern. The formal mechanism of the state resembled that of eastern Europe under communism. There was an inner circle of rulers and numerous security agencies. But he also held power through manipulating tribal politics. He came from the al-Bejat clan, part of the Albu Nasir tribe, which was strong in the town of Tikrit, north of Baghdad. His most trusted lieutenants were either closely related to him or came from Sunni tribes with close links to his own.
In dealing with Iraqi politics Saddam always showed a certain genius. His many enemies inside Iraq never came close to overthrowing him. But if Saddam was astute about Iraqi politics he never knew much about the world beyond its borders. He had only once spent an extended period abroad, when he lived in exile in Egypt after failing to assassinate President Abd al-Karim Qassim in 1959. In the invasions of Iran in 1980 and Kuwait 10 years later he blundered in calculating the odds against his success.
Despite many self-inflicted disasters he retained the self confidence of Inspector Clouseau. He had intelligent men around him but they were wary of contradicting him. Everywhere in Iraq there were giant portraits of Saddam in a variety of garbs. I always liked one picture of Saddam, with dark glasses and a short-sleeved shirt, looking like Noël Coward on holiday in the South of France.
There was an element of theatre about the Iraqi leader. His military defeat in 2003 was humiliating. In December of the same year Saddam was dragged from a hole in the ground by US troops. As he lay in prison, Iraqis began to forget him but when his trial began he had a platform once more. The court proceedings during which he spat defiance at his prosecutors were televised live. People across Iraq watched with fascination.
The trial of Saddam probably changed few minds. The Sunni Arab community sympathised with him as one of their own. The Kurds, so long his chief victims, wanted him to hang. The Shia agreed, though many reflect wryly that their lives had been safer under his rule.
For half a century Saddam's enemies have been trying to kill him. Had they succeeded 10, 20 or 30 years ago the history of Iraq, the Middle East and the world might have been different. But his death comes too late. The violence he played his part in is out of control. His execution may make little difference.
Saddam was very much the product of his background. He was born in Ouija, a typical Iraqi village, on 28 April 1937. His father, Hussein al-Majid, was a peasant farmer who died just before Saddam was born or a few months later. He was brought up by two of his uncles and his mother, Subha al-Tulfah.
He became a member of the Baath party, which had few members but these were critically placed in the army. After holding power briefly in 1963 after a coup, the Baath Party - and with it Saddam Hussein - came to power permanently in July 1968.
For 10 years Saddam controlled security and intelligence while his cousin, General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, was president. But Saddam was always the coming man. He took extraordinary measures to protect himself, always keeping his movements secret. He not only institutionalised torture but publicised it, making sure that no Iraqi was ignorant of the fate of anybody who opposed the regime.
In 1980 Saddam invaded Iran, but discovered that the Iranian government could mobilise vast numbers of untrained but enthusiastic volunteers. Many Iraqi troops surrendered. It was only when the Iraninvaded Iraq that Saddam's appeals to Iraqi nationalism were answered. He was also supported by the Sunni regimes of the Middle East, the US, the Soviet Union and western Europe. They did not object when he started to use poison gas on Iranian troops. In a famous picture in 1983 Saddam beams as he clasps the hand of Donald Rumsfeld on a visit to Baghdad.
It was Iran that sued for peace in 1988 but Iraq had won little from the war. Saddam exaggerated belief in the extent of his success led him to invade Kuwait. Most Iraqis knew they could not fight the whole world and thought their leader was engaged in a political manoeuvre. When the first US planes came to bomb Baghdad in January 1991 they were astonished to find it "lit up like Las Vegas".
Saddam claimed to have amassed one million soldiers to fight the US-led coalition. In reality mass desertions meant the real number was far smaller. The Iraqi army in Kuwait was ordered home and broke into open mutiny when it reached Basra. Within a few days the Shia Provinces of southern Iraq and the Kurdish Provinces of the north revolted. Saddam's regime was tottering.
He was saved because he had good nerves. The Sunni army officers of central Iraq rallied against the Kurds and Shia. Above all the US did not want Shia religious parties sympathetic to Iran to replace Saddam. He survived but his power was limited by UN sanctions and by UN weapons inspectors. He grew weaker and lost control of Kurdistan, but he still crushed the conspiracies against him.
During all this time he lived in palatial splendour. He developed a taste for Cuban cigars. As if to compensate for his defeat in Kuwait, he built palaces for himself and his family all over Iraq. His also constructed mosques, often gigantic in scale. He began to write historical novels, of which great numbers were printed.
Saddam might still have survived. Indeed, up until the 11 September terror attacks, it seemed likely that he would.
In 2003 as in 1991, the Iraqi army did not fight for him. Saddam's career seemed to have ended in total humiliation. But as he sat in his prison cell in the huge US base by Baghdad Airport over the past three years, he must have realised that if he had lost, his captors had not won.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq', published by Verso
Saddam's principal lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said US officials who have been holding him at Fort Cropper near the airport outside Baghdad had asked him to pick up Saddam's possessions and those of his half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, also facing execution. His two other half- brothers, Watban and Sabawi, visited him on Thursday and he gave them his will.
I first saw Saddam Hussein making a speech on a distant platform in Baghdad in 1978. He was already known as "The Strong Man of Iraq" and the following year he executed several leaders of the ruling Baath party who were opposed to him becoming the all-powerful president.
Criticism of the leader and his family was highly dangerous. People in cafés in Baghdad were nervous if they accidentally spilled their coffee on their newspaper. They feared they might be accused of deliberately defacing the picture of Saddam Hussein that invariably appeared on the front page.
He wanted to be a world historical figure and in a way he achieved his ambition. He compared himself to the great heroes of the Iraqi past, such as Sargon of Akkad, Nebuchadnezzar and Saladin. At the height of the Iran-Iraq War, when resources were strained in Iraq, he rebuilt part of ancient Babylon with ugly yellowed bricks, on each of which was printed his name.
Surprisingly he succeeded in making the world ring with his name. But he did so through defeat and not victory. In 1980 he invaded Iran and started an eight-year-long war in which one million Iraqis and Iranians were killed and wounded. In 1990 he occupied Kuwait and was defeated by US-led forces.
Saddam destroyed his own country. When he came to power it had oil, money, a competent administration and a well-educated population. He left it in ruins. He inflicted on his people years of war that still show no sign of ending. UN sanctions from 1990 to 2003 so weakened the Iraqi state that it disintegrated with Saddam's overthrow.
He was cruel by nature. But he was also the product of a violent, deeply divided country. A Sunni himself, he always represented the minority of Iraq's population who only held power by force. Although he portrayed himself as a soldier, his real skills were as a secret policeman, tightening security measures against potential plotters. Even at the height of his power, tank brigades around Baghdad were issued with only a few rounds of ammunition to prevent them mounting a coup against him.
The Iraq Saddam ruled was a bizarre mixture of ancient and modern. The formal mechanism of the state resembled that of eastern Europe under communism. There was an inner circle of rulers and numerous security agencies. But he also held power through manipulating tribal politics. He came from the al-Bejat clan, part of the Albu Nasir tribe, which was strong in the town of Tikrit, north of Baghdad. His most trusted lieutenants were either closely related to him or came from Sunni tribes with close links to his own.
In dealing with Iraqi politics Saddam always showed a certain genius. His many enemies inside Iraq never came close to overthrowing him. But if Saddam was astute about Iraqi politics he never knew much about the world beyond its borders. He had only once spent an extended period abroad, when he lived in exile in Egypt after failing to assassinate President Abd al-Karim Qassim in 1959. In the invasions of Iran in 1980 and Kuwait 10 years later he blundered in calculating the odds against his success.
Despite many self-inflicted disasters he retained the self confidence of Inspector Clouseau. He had intelligent men around him but they were wary of contradicting him. Everywhere in Iraq there were giant portraits of Saddam in a variety of garbs. I always liked one picture of Saddam, with dark glasses and a short-sleeved shirt, looking like Noël Coward on holiday in the South of France.
There was an element of theatre about the Iraqi leader. His military defeat in 2003 was humiliating. In December of the same year Saddam was dragged from a hole in the ground by US troops. As he lay in prison, Iraqis began to forget him but when his trial began he had a platform once more. The court proceedings during which he spat defiance at his prosecutors were televised live. People across Iraq watched with fascination.
The trial of Saddam probably changed few minds. The Sunni Arab community sympathised with him as one of their own. The Kurds, so long his chief victims, wanted him to hang. The Shia agreed, though many reflect wryly that their lives had been safer under his rule.
For half a century Saddam's enemies have been trying to kill him. Had they succeeded 10, 20 or 30 years ago the history of Iraq, the Middle East and the world might have been different. But his death comes too late. The violence he played his part in is out of control. His execution may make little difference.
Saddam was very much the product of his background. He was born in Ouija, a typical Iraqi village, on 28 April 1937. His father, Hussein al-Majid, was a peasant farmer who died just before Saddam was born or a few months later. He was brought up by two of his uncles and his mother, Subha al-Tulfah.
He became a member of the Baath party, which had few members but these were critically placed in the army. After holding power briefly in 1963 after a coup, the Baath Party - and with it Saddam Hussein - came to power permanently in July 1968.
For 10 years Saddam controlled security and intelligence while his cousin, General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, was president. But Saddam was always the coming man. He took extraordinary measures to protect himself, always keeping his movements secret. He not only institutionalised torture but publicised it, making sure that no Iraqi was ignorant of the fate of anybody who opposed the regime.
In 1980 Saddam invaded Iran, but discovered that the Iranian government could mobilise vast numbers of untrained but enthusiastic volunteers. Many Iraqi troops surrendered. It was only when the Iraninvaded Iraq that Saddam's appeals to Iraqi nationalism were answered. He was also supported by the Sunni regimes of the Middle East, the US, the Soviet Union and western Europe. They did not object when he started to use poison gas on Iranian troops. In a famous picture in 1983 Saddam beams as he clasps the hand of Donald Rumsfeld on a visit to Baghdad.
It was Iran that sued for peace in 1988 but Iraq had won little from the war. Saddam exaggerated belief in the extent of his success led him to invade Kuwait. Most Iraqis knew they could not fight the whole world and thought their leader was engaged in a political manoeuvre. When the first US planes came to bomb Baghdad in January 1991 they were astonished to find it "lit up like Las Vegas".
Saddam claimed to have amassed one million soldiers to fight the US-led coalition. In reality mass desertions meant the real number was far smaller. The Iraqi army in Kuwait was ordered home and broke into open mutiny when it reached Basra. Within a few days the Shia Provinces of southern Iraq and the Kurdish Provinces of the north revolted. Saddam's regime was tottering.
He was saved because he had good nerves. The Sunni army officers of central Iraq rallied against the Kurds and Shia. Above all the US did not want Shia religious parties sympathetic to Iran to replace Saddam. He survived but his power was limited by UN sanctions and by UN weapons inspectors. He grew weaker and lost control of Kurdistan, but he still crushed the conspiracies against him.
During all this time he lived in palatial splendour. He developed a taste for Cuban cigars. As if to compensate for his defeat in Kuwait, he built palaces for himself and his family all over Iraq. His also constructed mosques, often gigantic in scale. He began to write historical novels, of which great numbers were printed.
Saddam might still have survived. Indeed, up until the 11 September terror attacks, it seemed likely that he would.
In 2003 as in 1991, the Iraqi army did not fight for him. Saddam's career seemed to have ended in total humiliation. But as he sat in his prison cell in the huge US base by Baghdad Airport over the past three years, he must have realised that if he had lost, his captors had not won.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq', published by Verso
QUOTE
The rise and fall of Iraq's dictator
* 28 April 1937: Saddam Hussein is born to a peasant family near Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
* 7 October, 1959: Joins assassination squad that wounds Iraq's military leader, Gen Abdel-Karim Kassem. Wounded in the leg, Saddam flees Iraq for Syria and Egypt.
* 1964-1966: Jailed for participation in Baath Party. Escapes to become leading party member.
* 17 July 1968: Saddam's cousin becomes Iraqi president.
* 15 July 1979: Takes power from his cousin as president of Iraq.
* 22 Sept 1980: Backed by the West, orders troops to invade Iran. The eight-year war, in which Iraq uses nerve gas against Iranians, kills hundreds of thousands on both sides.
* 8 July 1982: Survives assassination attempt. Purges town of Dujail; 150 residents executed on Saddam's orders.
* 28 March 1988: Uses chemical weapons against Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq, killing 5,000 civilians.
* 2 August 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait.
* 17 January 1991: US coalition launches the Gulf War.
* 20 February 1996: Saddam orders killing of two sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan.
* December 1996: Saddam's son and heir, Uday, wounded in assassination attempt.
* 12 September 2002: President Bush calls on UN to confront Iraq - or stand aside as the US and like-minded nations act.
* March 20, 2003: US-led forces invade Iraq. "Shock and awe" bombardment followed by ground invasion.
* 9 April 2003: US forces enter central Baghdad.
* 13 December, 2003: Saddam captured by US forces.
* 19 October 2005: Saddam appears in court charged with crimes against humanity for Dujail massacre.
* 21 August 2006: Second trial of Saddam opens. He is charged with genocide and war crimes against the Kurds.
* 5 November 2006: Saddam sentenced to death by hanging. His half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a former chief judge, are also sentenced to death.
* 26 December 2006: Conviction upheld by appeals court.
* 28 April 1937: Saddam Hussein is born to a peasant family near Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
* 7 October, 1959: Joins assassination squad that wounds Iraq's military leader, Gen Abdel-Karim Kassem. Wounded in the leg, Saddam flees Iraq for Syria and Egypt.
* 1964-1966: Jailed for participation in Baath Party. Escapes to become leading party member.
* 17 July 1968: Saddam's cousin becomes Iraqi president.
* 15 July 1979: Takes power from his cousin as president of Iraq.
* 22 Sept 1980: Backed by the West, orders troops to invade Iran. The eight-year war, in which Iraq uses nerve gas against Iranians, kills hundreds of thousands on both sides.
* 8 July 1982: Survives assassination attempt. Purges town of Dujail; 150 residents executed on Saddam's orders.
* 28 March 1988: Uses chemical weapons against Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq, killing 5,000 civilians.
* 2 August 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait.
* 17 January 1991: US coalition launches the Gulf War.
* 20 February 1996: Saddam orders killing of two sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan.
* December 1996: Saddam's son and heir, Uday, wounded in assassination attempt.
* 12 September 2002: President Bush calls on UN to confront Iraq - or stand aside as the US and like-minded nations act.
* March 20, 2003: US-led forces invade Iraq. "Shock and awe" bombardment followed by ground invasion.
* 9 April 2003: US forces enter central Baghdad.
* 13 December, 2003: Saddam captured by US forces.
* 19 October 2005: Saddam appears in court charged with crimes against humanity for Dujail massacre.
* 21 August 2006: Second trial of Saddam opens. He is charged with genocide and war crimes against the Kurds.
* 5 November 2006: Saddam sentenced to death by hanging. His half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a former chief judge, are also sentenced to death.
* 26 December 2006: Conviction upheld by appeals court.
Saddam Hussein dies on the gallows
Associated Press - 30 December 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle...icle2112669.ece
QUOTE
Saddam Hussein, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq with remorseless brutality for a quarter of a century, was executed today. On the gallows, he refused to wear a hood and shouted: "God is great."
It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three US presidents. Despite his removal, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn uprising by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.
US president George Bush called Saddam's execution "the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime".
Baghdad was relatively quiet after the announcement and the government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did when Saddam was convicted on November 5 to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence.
In Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, some danced and fired guns in the air to celebrate the former dictator's death.
State-run Iraqiya television news had reported earlier that Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were also hanged. But the government said later that only Saddam was executed.
"We wanted him to be executed on a special day," national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said.
Al-Rubaie said Saddam "totally surrendered" and did not resist. He said a judge read the sentence to Saddam, who was taken in handcuffs to the execution room just before 6am local time (3am GMT).
When he stood in the execution room, photographs and video footage were taken.
"He did not ask for anything. He was carrying a Koran and said, 'I want this Koran to be given to this person', a man he called Bander," he said. Al-Rubaie said he did not know who Bander was.
"Saddam was treated with respect when he was alive and after his death," al-Rubaie said. "Saddam's execution was 100% Iraqi and the American side did not interfere."
Sami al-Askari, political adviser to prime minister Nouri Maliki, said Saddam struggled when he was taken from his cell in an American military prison, but was composed in his last moments.
He said Saddam was clad completely in black, with a jacket, trousers, hat and shoes, rather than prison garb.
Shortly before the execution, Saddam's hat was removed and Saddam was asked if he wanted to say something, al-Askari said.
"No I don't want to," al-Askari quoted Saddam as saying. Saddam did repeat a prayer after a Sunni Muslim cleric who was present.
"Saddam later was taken to the gallows and refused to have his head covered with a bag," al-Askari said.
"Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted: 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab," al-Askari said.
He said the government had not decided what to do with Saddam's body.
Mariam al-Rayes, a legal expert and a former member of the Shiite bloc in parliament, told Iraqiya television that the execution "was filmed and God willing it will be shown. There was one camera present, and a doctor was also present there".
Al-Rayes, an ally of Maliki, did not attend the execution. She said Al-Maliki did not attend but was represented by an aide.
The execution was carried out around the start of Eid al-Adha, the Islamic world's largest holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. Many Muslims celebrate by sacrificing domestic animals, usually sheep.
Sunnis and Shiites throughout the world began observing the four-day holiday at dawn today, but Iraq's Shiite community - the country's majority - will start celebrating tomorrow.
The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982.
Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam's appeal on Monday and ordered him executed within 30 days.
Early today a US judge refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge.
Maliki had rejected calls that Saddam be spared, telling families of people killed during the dictator's rule that it would be an insult to the victims.
But New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the execution, calling Saddam's trial "deeply flawed".
"Saddam Hussein was responsible for massive human rights violations, but that can't justify giving him the death penalty, which is a cruel and inhuman punishment," said Richard Dicker, director of the group's International Justice Programme.
At his death, Saddam was in the midst of a second trial, charged with genocide and other crimes for a 1987-88 military crackdown that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. Experts said the trial of his co-defendants was likely to continue despite his execution.
In a farewell message to Iraqis posted on the internet on Wednesday, Saddam said he was giving his life for his country as part of the struggle against the US.
"Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs," he said.
The message called on Iraqis to put aside the sectarian hatred that has bloodied their nation for a year and voiced support for the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency against US-led forces, saying: "Long live jihad and the mujahedeen."
Saddam urged Iraqis to rely on God's help in fighting "against the unjust nations" that ousted his regime.
Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam's legal team, said US authorities maintained physical custody of Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated, as has happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by force.
Iraq's death penalty was suspended by the US military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.
Saddam was executed at a former military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's Shia neighbourhood of Kazimiyah, al-Askari said. The neighbourhood is home to the Iraqi capital's most important Shiite shrine, the Imam Kazim.
Ali Hamza, a 30-year-old university professor, said he went outside to shoot his gun into the air after he heard the news.
"Now all the victims' families will be happy because Saddam got his just sentence," said Hamza, who lives in Diwaniyah, a Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad.
"We are looking for a new page of history despite the tragedy of the past," said Saif Ibrahim, a 26-year-old Baghdad resident.
But people in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his death.
"The president, the leader Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior," said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque.
As a security precaution, police blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days.
The Iraqi prime minister's office released a statement that said Saddam's execution was a "strong lesson" to ruthless leaders who commit crimes against their own people.
"We strongly reject considering Saddam as a representative of any sect in Iraq because the tyrant only represented his evil soul," the statement said. "The door is still open for those whose hands are not tainted with the blood of innocent people to take part in the political process and work on rebuilding Iraq."
US troops cheered as news of Saddam's execution appeared on television at the mess hall at Forward Operating Base Loyalty in eastern Baghdad. But some soldiers expressed doubt that Saddam's death would be a significant turning point for Iraq.
"First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq.
"So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"
Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Saddam "was the head of injustice and this (execution) is a clear message to anyone who thinks of following the track of terrorism and killing. This is the end of this man after 35 years."
Many people in Iraq's Shiite majority were eager to see the execution of a man whose Sunni Arab-dominated regime oppressed them and Kurds.
Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday 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 neighbouring 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.
Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam's legal team, said US authorities maintained physical custody of Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated, as has happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by force. He said they didn't want anything to happen to further inflame Sunni Arabs.
"This is the end of an era in Iraq," al-Nauimi said from Doha, Qatar. "The Baath regime ruled for 35 years. Saddam was vice president or president of Iraq during those years. For Iraqis, he will be very well remembered. Like a martyr, he died for the sake of his country."
It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three US presidents. Despite his removal, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn uprising by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.
US president George Bush called Saddam's execution "the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime".
Baghdad was relatively quiet after the announcement and the government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did when Saddam was convicted on November 5 to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence.
In Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, some danced and fired guns in the air to celebrate the former dictator's death.
State-run Iraqiya television news had reported earlier that Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were also hanged. But the government said later that only Saddam was executed.
"We wanted him to be executed on a special day," national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said.
Al-Rubaie said Saddam "totally surrendered" and did not resist. He said a judge read the sentence to Saddam, who was taken in handcuffs to the execution room just before 6am local time (3am GMT).
When he stood in the execution room, photographs and video footage were taken.
"He did not ask for anything. He was carrying a Koran and said, 'I want this Koran to be given to this person', a man he called Bander," he said. Al-Rubaie said he did not know who Bander was.
"Saddam was treated with respect when he was alive and after his death," al-Rubaie said. "Saddam's execution was 100% Iraqi and the American side did not interfere."
Sami al-Askari, political adviser to prime minister Nouri Maliki, said Saddam struggled when he was taken from his cell in an American military prison, but was composed in his last moments.
He said Saddam was clad completely in black, with a jacket, trousers, hat and shoes, rather than prison garb.
Shortly before the execution, Saddam's hat was removed and Saddam was asked if he wanted to say something, al-Askari said.
"No I don't want to," al-Askari quoted Saddam as saying. Saddam did repeat a prayer after a Sunni Muslim cleric who was present.
"Saddam later was taken to the gallows and refused to have his head covered with a bag," al-Askari said.
"Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted: 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab," al-Askari said.
He said the government had not decided what to do with Saddam's body.
Mariam al-Rayes, a legal expert and a former member of the Shiite bloc in parliament, told Iraqiya television that the execution "was filmed and God willing it will be shown. There was one camera present, and a doctor was also present there".
Al-Rayes, an ally of Maliki, did not attend the execution. She said Al-Maliki did not attend but was represented by an aide.
The execution was carried out around the start of Eid al-Adha, the Islamic world's largest holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. Many Muslims celebrate by sacrificing domestic animals, usually sheep.
Sunnis and Shiites throughout the world began observing the four-day holiday at dawn today, but Iraq's Shiite community - the country's majority - will start celebrating tomorrow.
The execution came 56 days after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from a town where assassins tried to kill the dictator in 1982.
Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam's appeal on Monday and ordered him executed within 30 days.
Early today a US judge refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge.
Maliki had rejected calls that Saddam be spared, telling families of people killed during the dictator's rule that it would be an insult to the victims.
But New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the execution, calling Saddam's trial "deeply flawed".
"Saddam Hussein was responsible for massive human rights violations, but that can't justify giving him the death penalty, which is a cruel and inhuman punishment," said Richard Dicker, director of the group's International Justice Programme.
At his death, Saddam was in the midst of a second trial, charged with genocide and other crimes for a 1987-88 military crackdown that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. Experts said the trial of his co-defendants was likely to continue despite his execution.
In a farewell message to Iraqis posted on the internet on Wednesday, Saddam said he was giving his life for his country as part of the struggle against the US.
"Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs," he said.
The message called on Iraqis to put aside the sectarian hatred that has bloodied their nation for a year and voiced support for the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency against US-led forces, saying: "Long live jihad and the mujahedeen."
Saddam urged Iraqis to rely on God's help in fighting "against the unjust nations" that ousted his regime.
Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam's legal team, said US authorities maintained physical custody of Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated, as has happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by force.
Iraq's death penalty was suspended by the US military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.
Saddam was executed at a former military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's Shia neighbourhood of Kazimiyah, al-Askari said. The neighbourhood is home to the Iraqi capital's most important Shiite shrine, the Imam Kazim.
Ali Hamza, a 30-year-old university professor, said he went outside to shoot his gun into the air after he heard the news.
"Now all the victims' families will be happy because Saddam got his just sentence," said Hamza, who lives in Diwaniyah, a Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad.
"We are looking for a new page of history despite the tragedy of the past," said Saif Ibrahim, a 26-year-old Baghdad resident.
But people in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his death.
"The president, the leader Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior," said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque.
As a security precaution, police blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days.
The Iraqi prime minister's office released a statement that said Saddam's execution was a "strong lesson" to ruthless leaders who commit crimes against their own people.
"We strongly reject considering Saddam as a representative of any sect in Iraq because the tyrant only represented his evil soul," the statement said. "The door is still open for those whose hands are not tainted with the blood of innocent people to take part in the political process and work on rebuilding Iraq."
US troops cheered as news of Saddam's execution appeared on television at the mess hall at Forward Operating Base Loyalty in eastern Baghdad. But some soldiers expressed doubt that Saddam's death would be a significant turning point for Iraq.
"First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq.
"So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"
Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Saddam "was the head of injustice and this (execution) is a clear message to anyone who thinks of following the track of terrorism and killing. This is the end of this man after 35 years."
Many people in Iraq's Shiite majority were eager to see the execution of a man whose Sunni Arab-dominated regime oppressed them and Kurds.
Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday 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 neighbouring 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.
Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member of Saddam's legal team, said US authorities maintained physical custody of Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated, as has happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by force. He said they didn't want anything to happen to further inflame Sunni Arabs.
"This is the end of an era in Iraq," al-Nauimi said from Doha, Qatar. "The Baath regime ruled for 35 years. Saddam was vice president or president of Iraq during those years. For Iraqis, he will be very well remembered. Like a martyr, he died for the sake of his country."
A dictator created then destroyed by America
Robert Fisk - Independent UK - 30 December 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2112555.ece
QUOTE
Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed - by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans - on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.
But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?
No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don't gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn't invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead - and thousands of Western troops are dead - because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.
In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created.
Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.
And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium shells and our "bunker buster" bombs and our phosphorous, the murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the aftermath of our "victory" - our "mission accomplished" - who will be found guilty of this? Such expiation as we might expect will come, no doubt, in the self-serving memoirs of Blair and Bush, written in comfortable and wealthy retirement.
Hours before Saddam's death sentence, his family - his first wife, Sajida, and Saddam's daughter and their other relatives - had given up hope.
"Whatever could be done has been done - we can only wait for time to take its course," one of them said last night. But Saddam knew, and had already announced his own "martyrdom": he was still the president of Iraq and he would die for Iraq. All condemned men face a decision: to die with a last, grovelling plea for mercy or to die with whatever dignity they can wrap around themselves in their last hours on earth. His last trial appearance - that wan smile that spread over the mass-murderer's face - showed us which path Saddam intended to walk to the noose.
I have catalogued his monstrous crimes over the years. I have talked to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us - and whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives, were hanged like thrushes by Saddam's executioners.
I have walked round the execution chamber of Abu Ghraib - only months, it later transpired, after we had been using the same prison for a few tortures and killings of our own - and I have watched Iraqis pull thousands of their dead relatives from the mass graves of Hilla. One of them has a newly-inserted artificial hip and a medical identification number on his arm. He had been taken directly from hospital to his place of execution. Like Donald Rumsfeld, I have even shaken the dictator's soft, damp hand. Yet the old war criminal finished his days in power writing romantic novels.
It was my colleague, Tom Friedman - now a messianic columnist for The New York Times - who perfectly caught Saddam's character just before the 2003 invasion: Saddam was, he wrote, "part Don Corleone, part Donald Duck". And, in this unique definition, Friedman caught the horror of all dictators; their sadistic attraction and the grotesque, unbelievable nature of their barbarity.
But that is not how the Arab world will see him. At first, those who suffered from Saddam's cruelty will welcome his execution. Hundreds wanted to pull the hangman's lever. So will many other Kurds and Shia outside Iraq welcome his end. But they - and millions of other Muslims - will remember how he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn of the Eid al-Adha feast, which recalls the would-be sacrifice by Abraham, of his son, a commemoration which even the ghastly Saddam cynically used to celebrate by releasing prisoners from his jails. "Handed over to the Iraqi authorities," he may have been before his death. But his execution will go down - correctly - as an American affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this - that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes) Saddam died a "martyr" to the will of the new "Crusaders".
When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. After his death, it will redouble in intensity again. Freed from the remotest possibility of Saddam's return by his execution, the West's enemies in Iraq have no reason to fear the return of his Baathist regime. Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair. And there's a thought. So many crimes avenged.
But we will have got away with it.
But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?
No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don't gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn't invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead - and thousands of Western troops are dead - because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.
In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created.
Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.
And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium shells and our "bunker buster" bombs and our phosphorous, the murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the aftermath of our "victory" - our "mission accomplished" - who will be found guilty of this? Such expiation as we might expect will come, no doubt, in the self-serving memoirs of Blair and Bush, written in comfortable and wealthy retirement.
Hours before Saddam's death sentence, his family - his first wife, Sajida, and Saddam's daughter and their other relatives - had given up hope.
"Whatever could be done has been done - we can only wait for time to take its course," one of them said last night. But Saddam knew, and had already announced his own "martyrdom": he was still the president of Iraq and he would die for Iraq. All condemned men face a decision: to die with a last, grovelling plea for mercy or to die with whatever dignity they can wrap around themselves in their last hours on earth. His last trial appearance - that wan smile that spread over the mass-murderer's face - showed us which path Saddam intended to walk to the noose.
I have catalogued his monstrous crimes over the years. I have talked to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us - and whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives, were hanged like thrushes by Saddam's executioners.
I have walked round the execution chamber of Abu Ghraib - only months, it later transpired, after we had been using the same prison for a few tortures and killings of our own - and I have watched Iraqis pull thousands of their dead relatives from the mass graves of Hilla. One of them has a newly-inserted artificial hip and a medical identification number on his arm. He had been taken directly from hospital to his place of execution. Like Donald Rumsfeld, I have even shaken the dictator's soft, damp hand. Yet the old war criminal finished his days in power writing romantic novels.
It was my colleague, Tom Friedman - now a messianic columnist for The New York Times - who perfectly caught Saddam's character just before the 2003 invasion: Saddam was, he wrote, "part Don Corleone, part Donald Duck". And, in this unique definition, Friedman caught the horror of all dictators; their sadistic attraction and the grotesque, unbelievable nature of their barbarity.
But that is not how the Arab world will see him. At first, those who suffered from Saddam's cruelty will welcome his execution. Hundreds wanted to pull the hangman's lever. So will many other Kurds and Shia outside Iraq welcome his end. But they - and millions of other Muslims - will remember how he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn of the Eid al-Adha feast, which recalls the would-be sacrifice by Abraham, of his son, a commemoration which even the ghastly Saddam cynically used to celebrate by releasing prisoners from his jails. "Handed over to the Iraqi authorities," he may have been before his death. But his execution will go down - correctly - as an American affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this - that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes) Saddam died a "martyr" to the will of the new "Crusaders".
When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. After his death, it will redouble in intensity again. Freed from the remotest possibility of Saddam's return by his execution, the West's enemies in Iraq have no reason to fear the return of his Baathist regime. Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair. And there's a thought. So many crimes avenged.
But we will have got away with it.
Saddam: The questions that will live on
Andrew Buncombe in Washington - UK Independent - 30 December 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politi...icle2112671.ece
QUOTE
So why did George Bush decide to invade Iraq? Nearly four years and hundreds of thousands of casualties later, the reasons appear both as obvious and as elusive as they were in the spring of 2003.
The official reasoning was always straightforward. Key among the claims included in the so-called Iraq War Resolution passed by Congress in October 2002 was that Iraq "poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region". It added that Saddam's regime harboured chemical and biological weapons and was seeking to develop a nuclear ar5enal.
In an address to the nation just three days before the invasion, Mr Bush declared: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
It quickly became clear that central claim was not true, and it became equally clear the administration had been manipulating uncertain and "caveated" intelligence to make the case for a war that had been decided on long before. The famous Downing Street memo suggests that as early as July 2002 " intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy". Indeed, within hours of the attacks of 9/11, senior elements within the administration were seeking for a strike against Iraq even though there was no evidence it was involved.
But if the alleged threat of WMD was based on manipulated intelligence – some provided by Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress - what else motivated the US? Many remain convinced the overwhelming factor was a desire to control Iraq's oil supplies, the second largest proven reserves in the world. Such a view has been reinforced by recent recommendations of Iraq Study Group which said: " The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganise the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise, in order to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability."
Veteran dissident Noam Chomsky said: "It is glaringly obvious that Iraq is estimated to have the second largest energy reserves in the world and is right at the heart of the world's major energy producing region, and that establishing a client state in Iraq would considerably enhance policies that go back to the dawn of the oil age, and in particular to the post-war period when the US was taking over global domination, and established as a very high and natural policy principle the need to control this ‘stupendous source of strategic power'."
He added: "It takes remarkable obedience to authority to believe that the US would have 'liberated' Iraq - or taken revenge - if its main exports were lettuce and pickles, and the major petroleum resources were in the South Pacific."
Some point out that a desire among some in government to oust Saddam predated 9/11, and suggest in the aftermath of those attacks, a climate existed in which it was easier to pursue an invasion. Indeed, among the signatories to the 1998 letter from the neo-con Project for the New American Century calling on President Clinton to take on Saddam were former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.
Mr Wolfowitz later said Saddam's alleged possession of WMD was just one of many reasons for invading. "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," he said.
David Swanson, a founder of afterdowningstreet.org, a coalition of peace and activist groups, said: "The one thing we know is that the reasons they told us were false. [I think] they wanted an Iraq that looked free but isn't and they wanted to control it¿They wanted the oil and the power that comes with controlling that oil and making profits for British and US oil companies."
Did other factors influence Mr Bush? Was he seeking revenge against "the guy who tried to kill my dad" – a reference to an alleged plot to kill the president's father during a visit to Kuwait in 1993 or was there even a broader strategic rationale, one that would benefit Israel – something claimed by peace activist Cindy Sheehan.
What does seem certain is that there was a confluence of factors and interests coming together in the aftermath of 9/11 that allowed Mr Bush to proceed to war with little opposition from the Congress, or indeed, the media.
The official reasoning was always straightforward. Key among the claims included in the so-called Iraq War Resolution passed by Congress in October 2002 was that Iraq "poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region". It added that Saddam's regime harboured chemical and biological weapons and was seeking to develop a nuclear ar5enal.
In an address to the nation just three days before the invasion, Mr Bush declared: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
It quickly became clear that central claim was not true, and it became equally clear the administration had been manipulating uncertain and "caveated" intelligence to make the case for a war that had been decided on long before. The famous Downing Street memo suggests that as early as July 2002 " intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy". Indeed, within hours of the attacks of 9/11, senior elements within the administration were seeking for a strike against Iraq even though there was no evidence it was involved.
But if the alleged threat of WMD was based on manipulated intelligence – some provided by Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress - what else motivated the US? Many remain convinced the overwhelming factor was a desire to control Iraq's oil supplies, the second largest proven reserves in the world. Such a view has been reinforced by recent recommendations of Iraq Study Group which said: " The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganise the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise, in order to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability."
Veteran dissident Noam Chomsky said: "It is glaringly obvious that Iraq is estimated to have the second largest energy reserves in the world and is right at the heart of the world's major energy producing region, and that establishing a client state in Iraq would considerably enhance policies that go back to the dawn of the oil age, and in particular to the post-war period when the US was taking over global domination, and established as a very high and natural policy principle the need to control this ‘stupendous source of strategic power'."
He added: "It takes remarkable obedience to authority to believe that the US would have 'liberated' Iraq - or taken revenge - if its main exports were lettuce and pickles, and the major petroleum resources were in the South Pacific."
Some point out that a desire among some in government to oust Saddam predated 9/11, and suggest in the aftermath of those attacks, a climate existed in which it was easier to pursue an invasion. Indeed, among the signatories to the 1998 letter from the neo-con Project for the New American Century calling on President Clinton to take on Saddam were former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.
Mr Wolfowitz later said Saddam's alleged possession of WMD was just one of many reasons for invading. "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," he said.
David Swanson, a founder of afterdowningstreet.org, a coalition of peace and activist groups, said: "The one thing we know is that the reasons they told us were false. [I think] they wanted an Iraq that looked free but isn't and they wanted to control it¿They wanted the oil and the power that comes with controlling that oil and making profits for British and US oil companies."
Did other factors influence Mr Bush? Was he seeking revenge against "the guy who tried to kill my dad" – a reference to an alleged plot to kill the president's father during a visit to Kuwait in 1993 or was there even a broader strategic rationale, one that would benefit Israel – something claimed by peace activist Cindy Sheehan.
What does seem certain is that there was a confluence of factors and interests coming together in the aftermath of 9/11 that allowed Mr Bush to proceed to war with little opposition from the Congress, or indeed, the media.
