Word: saddams
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...least the White House and the Pentagon, say, all too blithely, that numbers like these are arbitrary and unimportant. But that only highlights the non-numerical false milestones and would-be watersheds they have set up in the past. It is not just statistics that can lie. When Saddam was captured, it was going to break the back of the insurgency. Same when a democratic government was elected, a constitution drafted, a coalition government formed. The latest false milestone is the death of Saddam, another momentous event in the history of Iraq that is unlikely to change a single thing...
Bursts of celebratory gunfire went up as dawn broke in Baghdad, where news of Saddam Hussein's execution reached people as they awoke.? After the echoes of the shots faded, people went to their televisions and waited for the images to come.? Everyone was certain the Iraqi government would air some kind of footage from the execution.? Failure to do so would only open the door to years of conspiracy theories about how Hussein somehow slipped away and remained alive.? By midday, screens across Iraq carried Hussein's last moments.? There was Hussein atop the gallows, surrounded...
...last fall, even the insurgents notionally fighting in his name were beginning to wonder if he might not be more useful as a martyr than as the lead actor in a TV farce. One afternoon last October, I watched the televised Saddam trial in the company of Abu Hamza, a field commander of Jaish al-Islami. Iraq's largest insurgent group, Jaish al-Islami is made up mainly of Ba'athists and soldiers from Saddam's army. Abu Hamza had been an officer in Saddam's elite Republican Guard; in previous meetings, he had spoken reverentially about the dictator, describing...
...Hamza shook his head sorrowfully. Even a loyal follower could see no pride or dignity there. For the first time, Abu Hamza conceded that his president would never return to power. Then, in a cool, matter-of-fact tone, he broke the final taboo and began to talk of Saddam's death. We spoke of how it might happen: he was sure that the Iraqi government would ignore Saddam's request that he be executed like a soldier, by firing squad. "They will just hang him one night and announce it the next day," he said. "Then they will bury...
...Hamza was convinced that the exact opposite would happen. In death, Saddam would achieve immortal martyrdom, and be restored to his rightful place as the dominant figure in the national consciousness. "When they hang Saddam, they will make him once again powerful," he said. He pointed to a TV set. "He will go from there," he said, then tapped on his temple, "to here...