The news cycle has been taken over as the world waits for news of the for-certain execution of Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein:
The official witnesses to Saddam Hussein’s impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime’s atrocities….
…. As his time waned, Saddam received two of his half brothers in his cell Thursday and was said to have given them his personal belongings and a copy of his will.
Najeeb al-Nueimi, a member of Saddam’s legal team in Doha, Qatar, said he too requested a final meeting with the deposed Iraqi leader. “His daughter in Amman was crying, she said, ‘Take me with you,'” al-Nueimi said late Friday. But he said their request was rejected.
An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Friday EST. Saddam and others were convicted of murder in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from an Iraqi town where assassins tried to kill Saddam in 1982.
Also to be hanged were Saddam’s half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, the adviser said.
Already rumors have been flying on some talk shows, on the Internet:
Will it happen sooner than reported? Has it actually been carried out already but U.S. and Iraqi officials are using the time until the initial announcement to secure the capitol and get security forces generally in place?
Question: will it bring closure to a bloody chapter in Iraq’s history? Or, instead, will it help open a new bloody one? According to the New York Times, the pressure to do it ASAP took some legal experts by surprise:
The pace of events left some of the American legal advisors working on the case stunned, according to one Western official. For all the guidance the Americans provided, in the end the dictator’s demise did not go the way they expected, the officials said.
“It just goes to show that the Iraqis call the shots on something like this,� the official said.
And the swiftness of the execution — if it comes as quickly as it seems it will — could stain the Iraqi legal process, some say:
There has also been heated debate among Iraqi officials about how swiftly to carry out the death sentence, which was handed down on Nov. 5 and upheld on Tuesday. The appeals court said that the hanging had to take place within 30 days.
An Iraqi official close to the negotiations on when to execute Mr. Hussein expressed deep disappointment that, after years of forensic investigation, detailed litigation, and careful deliberation, the process could be compromised in the final hours by politically driven haste.
“According to the law, no execution can be carried out during the holidays� said one official involved in the negotiations. “After all the hard work we have done, why would we break the law and ruin what we have built.�
The Muslim holiday of Eid begins Saturday for Sunnis, which is Mr. Hussein’s sect, and Sunday for Shiites, who where oppressed under Mr. Hussein’s rule but now control the government.
Iraqi law seems to indicate that executions are forbidden on the holiday.
And how was Saddam reacting? It depends on the news source. McClatchy Newspapers:
As he faced the gallows Friday, Saddam Hussein told his lawyers that he was prepared to die and his supporters in Iraq would view him as a martyr. The former dictator “believes in his destiny,” one of his attorneys said.
But Iraqi government officials who are close to the case described a very different Saddam, one who was extremely nervous Friday evening when U.S. officials reportedly handed him over.
“He is in a state of shock,” said Mithal Alusi, a parliament member who sat in on the government’s daylong meetings Friday about Saddam’s fate. “He came apart. He realized he couldn’t escape this.”
Cable and radio talking heads echo this contradictory portrayal.
Some paint a Saddam unbowed, unflinching — someone who still believes he is the leader of Iraq and that his people love him. Others talk of a stunned Saddam. Which is accurate? The proper portrayal will emerge in the post-election stories.
And what about President George W. Bush? Will this help him politically and be interpreted by some as a vindication of his policy in removing a not-so-nice dictator from the world stage? Will it be cynically viewed by some as Bush having a Mission Accomplished in getting the guy that threatened his dad? Will it intimidate the insurgents, decrease the conflict — or have little or no impact or even make things worse?
Some experts predict it’ll be a wash for Bush. William Douglas of McClatchy Newspapers:
“Anytime the White House uses the term `milestone’ it’s a stone around the president’s neck,” said Ray Tanter, a national security professor at Georgetown University and a National Security Council member under President Reagan. “You do not change the situation in Iraq by capturing Saddam, convicting Saddam and executing Saddam. Nothing changes the insurgency except a political deal. The president may get a little bump from this, but it will quickly go down because the situation on the ground hasn’t changed.”
….Pollster John Zogby doubted Friday that Bush would get the same benefit from Saddam’s execution that he got from his capture.
“I don’t see his numbers going up at all unless there’s a drastic turnaround in Iraq on the ground,” Zogby said. “He’s really out of bounces because he’s lost Republicans and conservatives. Executing Saddam Hussein is not sufficient. It’s all about the war in Iraq.”
Ronald Walters, a University of Maryland political science professor, said Americans aren’t focusing on Saddam’s execution because they’ve soured on Bush’s handling of the war.
“Under normal circumstances, if there was a national consensus to go to war with Iraq, this would mean something,” he said. “But there were various rationales for why we went in, from weapons of mass destruction to `he tried to kill my father.’ Because the rationale for going to war unraveled and the violence escalated, Bush isn’t going to get the bounce from Saddam’s execution that he thought he would.”
Some believe Saddam’s execution could do Bush political harm if it sparks more sectarian violence at a time when the president is preparing to embark on a new effort to try to secure Iraq.
“Things could get a little crazier in Iraq short term, and that’s no help as the president tries to find a way forward in Iraq,” said Frederick Barton, a member of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that authored a report on how to proceed in Iraq. “I can only see this as a source of agitation. It will cause celebration in some parts of the country and be seen as a symbol of oppression in other parts.”
Barton suggested Friday that Saddam’s execution be postponed to prevent potential outbreaks of violence. …
Meanwhile, in Europe, governments there that are opposed to the death penalty restated their opposition to the sentence — but indicated little sympathy for Hussein.
The bottom line seems to be this:
(1) It will be huge international news when he is executed.
(2) The next thing to watch will be if there is a wave of violence. If NOT, it’ll be interpreted as the Iraqi people saying “good riddance.” If there is high-profile violence, even if it is suppressed, it will be seen as possibly aggravating existing tensions within Iraqi’s society and polity.
(3) If violence gets worse in the months following this execution, it will be interpreted down the road as yet one more bungle in post-war policy implementation, even if it turns out the Iraqi government was the one pushing for a rapid execution. If it turns out future reports suggest the U.S. government was pressuring for a quick execution by New Year’s Day, that info will be used by the Iraqi government’s critics against it.
(4) If insurgent violence greatly decreases it will be seen as proof that by “decapitating” the leader of a political faction, the faction’s threat can be defused.