BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 5, 2006
Saddam To Hang For War Crimes
Clashes, Celebrations As Former Iraqi President Is Sentenced To Death
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Play CBS Video Video Saddam Given Death Penalty Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, was sentenced to death by Iraq's High Tribunal for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites. The White House applauded the verdict. Charlie D' Agata reports.
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Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein yells at the court as a bailiff attempts to silence him as the verdict is delivered during his trial held under tight security in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006. (AP)
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Iraqis celebrate the death sentence verdict for former leader Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. (AP)
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Meanwhile, in the former leader's hometown of Tikrit, Iraqis hold up images of Saddam Hussein as they protest the death sentence verdict, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006. (AP Photo/Bassem Daham)
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Iraqi soldiers watch as the death sentence is told to former leader Saddam Hussein, at their base in Baqouba, Iraq, Sunday Nov. 5, 2006. (AP Photo/Mohammed Adnan)
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
Even with the verdict imminent, Saddam's lawyers and some Sunni politicians had called for the court proceedings to be suspended.
"It has become clear to the Iraqi people and the whole world that this court is politicized 100 percent," al-Mutlaq told the Doha-based al-Jazeera satellite channel.
Al-Mutlaq accused the U.S. and Iraqi governments of interfering with the work of the court and said a verdict would further polarize Iraqi society, already traumatized by sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis.
"This verdict will be the last nail in the coffin of the national reconciliation plan and the political process," al-Mutlaq said. "I call upon Arab leaders ... to interfere for the sake of Iraq's unity."
The head of another prominent Sunni group, Harith al-Dhari, said any verdict should be delayed until after the departure of U.S. forces, who toppled Saddam following their March 2003 invasion of the country.
"If this court issues the verdict, I would consider it to be illegal, illegitimate and political," al-Dhari told al-Arabiya, a satellite television channel viewed throughout the Arab world.
Echoing those sentiments, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard-line Sunni clerical group, demanded that Saddam's trial be postponed until "the occupation leaves."
"I do believe that this process is politically motivated and not a judicial one," Harith al-Dhari, the association's leader, told the Pan Arab al-Arabiya satellite channel.
One of Saddam's lawyers, Najeeb al-Nu'aimi, said Saddam and his co-defendants had not been given sufficient time to present their cases.
"The court is not neutral. It lacks legitimacy," said al-Nu-aimi, a former justice minister of the gulf state of Qatar.
The curfew, which also covers two provinces neighboring Baghdad where Sunni insurgents are battling U.S. troops and the Iraqi government, was only lightly observed in Baghdad's sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia led by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Local police commander Col. Hassan Challoub said quick reaction teams made up of the Iraqi police, army and the Interior Ministry commandos units were patrolling the area.
"No incident and nothing abnormal is reported so far," Challoub said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on Saturday Iraqis to accept the verdict Saddam without violence, but in the next breath declared that the former dictator must get "what he deserves."
A Shiite who was forced into years of exile during Saddam's Sunni-dominated rule, al-Maliki had called for Saddam to be sentenced to death.
In the United States, President Bush's chief spokesman underscored on Saturday that Saddam's trial was being conducted by an independent Iraqi judiciary, what he called an important component of the country's development.
"These are things that are absolutely vital to building a democracy that will not only sustain itself, but have the faith and support of the populace," said Tony Snow.
In advance of the verdict, vacationing soldiers were recalled to duty in one of the heaviest security crackdowns in Baghdad since the bombing of an important shrine in the city of Samarra in February that unleashed rampant sectarian violence.
New checkpoints popped up on major roads, including within the heavily fortified Green Zone that houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. and British embassies. A heavy police presence and larger than normal numbers of U.S. troops patrolled the streets.
A nine-judge panel will review the evidence to determine if the convictions and sentences were just. There is no time limit on how long the appeals judges can consider the appeal, but a court official told The Associated Press that the appeal deliberations are likely to take three to four weeks, once the formal paperwork is submitted.
Appeals Process
Some facts about the next steps in the Saddam Hussein case now
that he's been sentenced to death for the killings of 148 Shiite
Muslims in Dujail:
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 165 Comments
- It is a fair judgment. This killer (Saddam), killed thousands of Iraqies and Kuwaities. he turned Iraq from one of the richest countries to a poor one. As an Iraqi person,I'm so happy to see an end for this dictator. Death to Saddam, long live Iraq.
Montreal-Canada - Reply to this comment
batrhyme said "The same weapons have been widely used in Afghanistan against the people of one of the most primitive societies in the world".
I am not so sure, are they the same "primitive" people that ran the USSR out of their country?,
Are they the same "primitive" people that set up the "terrorist camps" in the first place?
They found out the hard way, we are not the USSR, we are not getting into any more (Democratic) "President Johnson" style Vietnams.- Reply to this comment
- Mass Murder: Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq--a nation that clearly posed no immediate threat to the U.S. or its own neighbors in 2003--was the worst of war crimes, a "Crime against Peace" under the Nuremburg Charter, and a crime under US law because it was based upon lies, fraud and deception. It has led to the unnecessary and criminal deaths of nearly 2900 American troops, the maiming of another 25,000, and the deaths of as many as 650,000 innocent Iraqi civilians--largely at the hands of U.S. weapons. Many of those weapons, like the illegal white phosphorus and napalm bombs used in Fallujah and elsewhere, The thousands of tons of depleted uranium shells and bombs, the millions of rounds of anti-personnel bombs and shells, and the helicopter and fixed-wing gunships that spray wide areas indiscriminately with saturation fire, are the very "weapons of mass destruction" which we claimed we were going to war to prevent. The same weapons have been widely used in Afghanistan against the people of one of the most primitive societies in the world. These are massive crimes, and they won't stop until the Congress brings them to a halt--and calls the criminal in the White House who initiated them to account. (Remember, neither one of these wars is doing a thing to challenge or defend against terrorism.)
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- batrhyme
Is that so, where are the mass grave sites? Where are his two sons that rape and kill hundreds? How come Iraq does not look like Berlin or Tokyo did in 1945? When did Bush invade our neighbor Canada or Mexico to kill and rape? - Reply to this comment
- George W Bush is next. Talk about war crimes? He's got Saddam beat by a crooked Texas mile.
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- bluestardad said.
"Saddam was told by the U. S. that America wanted no part in a Middle East war hearing that he took that as an American Green Light and subsequently he invaded Kuwait".
Where did you get that information? Are you making it up as you go or do you have proof this conversation took place?
Besides, he had "five months" to get back out of Kuwait, the UN resolution told him to get out. What the hel@ was he waiting for? - Reply to this comment
- Saddam would have been our friend now and was given arms by America in the past. Prior to the first gulf war Saddam contacted the State Department and ask permission from the U. S. before he went into Kuwait to stop their slant drilling into his Oil Fields. Kuwait was starting drilling oil on their side of the border but slanted the drills under ground to reach the reserves under Iraqi soil. Saddam was told by the U. S. that America wanted no part in a Middle East war hearing that he took that as an American Green Light and subsequently he invaded Kuwait. This set a domino effect in motion that led us to where we are today with thousands of American deaths and billions of tax dollars spent, The Middle East and Iraq in Chaos and millions of Iraqi and Middle East civilian deaths. Now this leader that was our friend in the Middle East is going to be hanged.
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- mh4cbs1 thanks for your comment. Bush is every bit as bad as hussain every was adn should be tried for crimes against humanity as well. Jail would be too good for him.
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- Funny....Saddam used to be brimming with confidence while he ruled, like no one on earth could touch him and the world was his oyster. Cruel, healthy and always smiling that murderous smile, giving death sentences out with impunity.
Now he is scrawny and gaunt, stressed out to the max, looks twenty years older and is obviously crapping his drawers, knowing what is going to happen to him. His phony ploy (before the announced verdict), asking Iraqis not to commit to violence was a complete farce, and right after his verdict was announced his was back in form, shaking and screaming for "death to his enemies." Trembling like a little sheep surrounded by wolves.
There is a Santa Claus after all, Virginia. This is so beautiful. A public execution would make the whole story perfect. Right before he swings from a rope the hangman should show him photos of his dead sons lying on a morgue slab, pulverized by the American forces. Even the bleeding heart whining of the European terrorist-appeasers is not going to save this scum from getting his just desserts.
Selah - Reply to this comment
- So long Saddam. You gonna meet your money maker..his name is Satan. Remember, you owe him a thing or two..I think your job in hell will be working a slaughter house at a pig farm
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- So... When do Bush and Cheney go on trial for their War Crimes? Lying us into an Invasion of a Country that was NOT a threat, with 2,800 dead US troops, and tens of thousands maimed for life. A few hundred thousand Iraqis killed.
What will the jury say about Bush and Cheney's needless horrific death and destruction? Shouldn't they at least get a couple years in Jail for negligent homicide? - Reply to this comment
- j-whitman
I sure won't miss all the mud slinging on both sides.
Most irritating thing at election time are all the little signs along the high ways and off ramps. I'll be glad when they are gone from my view. - Reply to this comment
- I figured my last post about Bill C would send at least 5 or 6 out to get a rope for my neck. I Guess they are at the all night Wal-Mart for the rope now.
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- thgdriver,,, I'm tiered too,,, Glad this election is almost over,, looks like all the posters are asleep.
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- Kailumego1........
I am afraid that you are right. What we, the U.S. has to look forward to with the situation in Iraq and the hanging of Hussein does not bode well for us.
Too bad. - Reply to this comment
- I worked a 7 PM Saturday. to 7 AM Sunday shift. I am tired and Irritated, hence the double post, thanks for asking.
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- thgdriver,, how's it going tonight?
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- President Truman (Democrat) refused to authorize the use of a-bombs in N. Korea when our troops were being killed by the "bushel" in N.Korea by "Red China".
If he had ==no N.Korea, no Red China, no Vietnam, no Cuba.
Maybe No USA, I don't know for sure, but it's 56 years too late to blame President Bush for Trumans lack of Bal@#. - Reply to this comment
- President Truman (Democrat) refused to authorize the use of a-bombs in N. Korea when our troops were being killed by the "bushel" in N.Korea by "Red China".
If he had ==no N.Korea, no Red China, no Vietnam, no Cuba.
Maybe No USA, I don't know for sure, but it's 56 years too late to blame President Bush for Trumans lack of Bal@#. - Reply to this comment
- The truth is our lives aren%u2019t going to be any better because of Saddam Hussein%u2019s execution, nor will ills plaguing Iraq be eradicated.
Think what you want about Saddam Hussein, he was a leader of a sovereign nation, in which we have encroached upon, and undoubtedly made things much, much worst.
And all the propaganda this government, the media, and the movie industry have forged onto Americans isn%u2019t going to alter or change this sad state of affairs.
Here%u2019s what we can look forward too:
7 The civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis will definitely intensify.
7 Additional soldiers will be needed, which will add up to more causality.
7 The clean up and rebuilding of Iraq will become an enormous economic strain on U.S. taxpayers.
7 The hatred for the U.S. will intensify trickling down to other Arabic and Islamic countries.
7 Israel%u2019s national security will become more strained.
7 Some Southeast Asian countries, like Indonesia will join alliance with Islamic extremists, because they opposed U.S. position in Iraq, and the execution of Saddam Hussein.
7 Tensions will escalate creating factionalism among Americans over the war.
7 And, some misguided Americans will vote Republicans right back into office, to continue their reign of %u201Cterror%u201D. - Reply to this comment
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
