Here is the whole video, resolution sucks tho. You do see him drop but the camera doesnt follow him all the way down. They do zoom in on him after tho.
Be forewarned that the video shows Saddam hang. DO NOT press play if you don’t want to see it.
Enough warning?
Ok, lets get on with it:
UPDATE 12-31-06 1020hrs PST
Here is a report of what was said in the chamber:
By several accounts, Saddam was calm but scornful of his captors, engaging in a give-and-take with the crowd gathered to watch him die and insisting he was Iraq’s savior, not its tyrant and scourge.
“He said we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians,” Munir Haddad, an appeals court judge who witnessed the hanging, told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Another witness, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told The New York Times that one of the guards shouted at Saddam: “You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution.”
“I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persian and Americans,” Saddam responded, al-Rubaie told the Times.
“God damn you,” the guard said.
“God damn you,” responded Saddam.
New video, first broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite television early Sunday, had sound of someone in the group praising the founder of the Shiite Dawa Party, who was executed in 1980 along with his sister by Saddam.
Saddam appeared to smile at those taunting him from below the gallows. He said they were not showing manhood.
Then Saddam began reciting the “Shahada,” a Muslim prayer that says there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger, according to an unabridged copy of the same tape, apparently shot with a camera phone and posted on a Web site. Saddam made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse. His last word was Muhammad.
The floor dropped out of the gallows.
“The tyrant has fallen,” someone in the group of onlookers shouted. The video showed a close-up of Saddam’s face as he swung from the rope.
Then came another voice: “Let him swing for three minutes.”
All in all a execution that was much too swift for a evil man such as Saddam. It should have been a long and painful process but alas, not much to be done about it now. The Iraqi’s handled it well I thought. There was some definite back and forth between the audience and Saddam which should not have been allowed but overall it went quick and was done professionally.
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Excellent work! Just added a link near the top of Saddam Hussein is still dead.
Looks to me like one of the black aces was flopping around last night! Or was that a flop, or just a drop I saw?
Is it me or was the whole process a little eerie sounding…
Maybe I’m just not accustomed to Muslim hangings, but the whole “Allahu Akbar” throughout the proceedure made it sound more like a execution performed by a secret cult in the Middle Ages or something.
I found the “Muqtada” part entertaining, however. Too bad I’m not a fan of Muqtada, or it would have been much more entertaining.
That guy is as bad with that camera as my wife.
Reuters’ll bring him on anyway.
Thanks for posting, Curt.
You don’t suppose this is the only video camera they thought to take, do you? You’d think they could afford a bit more professional camera work and lighting. Where’d they execute him at, again? The stairwell of the local roach hotel?
Well I guess that Saddam will have no problem servicing all those vestal virgins as he is now well hung.
Give that man a longneck!
Excellent.
To view a cynical and satirical visual of George Bush playing a round of “Hangman”…link here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
What a bunch of idiots. I 2nd the roach motel comment. These are our allies? The ones yelling Sadr’s name during the proceedings? We should just provide small weapons to both the Sunnis and Shiites and just let them kill each other or get into a prolonged civil war to keep themselves occupied. We should pull back to the new kurdistan, protect that region that truly want us there, and just let these two groups of idiots drown in their own cesspool of jihdi blood.
Saddamms dead, thats good. So, I hate him for me. That felt
him his, give me right, thats it-
Evan
I am ashamed at all the people rejoicing over someone hanging. Yes, he was a tyrant, but what is George W. Bush? do you think he is better? Saddam implied he followed Allah’s will, Bush was more self assured and publicly said ‘God told me to invade Irak’. I am so glad he is so well acquainted with the Lord, he might just be in for a surprise when he meets his maker….
People who live in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones
The Dead Dictator: Saddam Hussein
I am not going to criticize Iraq’s trial of Saddam because each country has there own judicial processes and it is not up to us, here in America, to be the judges of whether a trial by the Iraqi’s was “fair”.