Saddam's last words - they had nothing to do with 'Palestine'
Last night, reports indicated that Saddam Hussein's last words were "'Palestine' is Arab." This morning, after interviewing witnesses who were there and seeing the uncut video of Saddam's last moments that I linked last night (I don't speak Arabic, but I didn't think I heard 'Falestin' there anywhere), Al-AP is reporting a different story: 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.As the Munchkins said in the Wizard of Oz: The Wicked Witch is Dead!
"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."
(The picture comes from About: Political Humor - click the link to see an animated version).
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:41 AM
1 Comments:
I saw the video. Let's hope the world keeps him remembered as an evil tyrant and not the martyr I fear he might become. Thank G-d he's dead.
[Just a thought-- Maybe it would have been better if he were kept alive for the rest of his life in one of his own jail cells?]
-Zoe
Post a Comment
<< Home