Hundreds volunteered to be Saddam’s executioners. There should be little surprise that he was treated in a nasty manner after what he did to countless Iraqis. But they took a departure from what at first appeared dignified as we discover how his Iraqi jailers tormented him to the end.

“The guards were dancing in front of him. When Saddam tried to sleep, they were going in, every 30 minutes. They said, ‘We didn’t let him sleep. We destroyed his personality’.”

A little after 5am, a number of officials arrived at the jail. Saddam declined breakfast. He asked a guard for a cigarette, but was refused. Then, with his hands tied in front of him, he was led towards the execution cell.

Zeyad has a translation of his last words, which didn’t include what NBC of San Diego and Al Jazeera and others have claimed, “Palestine is Arab”.

We can make definitive comparisons now between the media’s claims and what actually occurred in the gallows because of the uncut hanging video that emerged. But what happened there shows us a mixture of Maliki’s sense of justice, how Saddam horribly oppressed the Shia, and the sectarian divide fueled by hatred among muslims in Iraq and elsewhere. Although Maliki’s Shia hated Saddam for the persecution and torture of the Shia under his regime, the Sunni community is now outraged at the disrespect that was shown him in his final hours. The American government had in fact attempted to counsel them to exercise caution in their rush to execute Saddam just as the Eid holiday was approaching; Saturday for the Sunnis and Sunday for the Shia. Saddam, for all the claims that he was a ’secular’ leader, was Sunni.

None of the Iraqi officials were able to explain why Mr. Maliki had been unwilling to allow the execution to wait. Nor would any explain why those who conducted it had allowed it to deteriorate into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs.

But the explanation may have lain in something that Bassam al-Husseini, a Maliki aide closely involved in arrangements for the hanging, said to the BBC later. Mr. Husseini, who has American citizenship, described the hanging as “an Id gift to the Iraqi people.”

Shiite rulers succeeded in transforming Saddam’s execution into a kick in the teeth for the Sunni minority which was privileged under Saddam Hussein.

“The Iraqis seemed quite frustrated, saying, ‘Who is going to execute him, anyway, you or us?’ The Americans replied by saying that obviously, it was the Iraqis who would carry out the hanging. So the Iraqis said, ‘This is our problem and we will handle the consequences. If there is any damage done, it is we who will be damaged, not you.’ ”

Sadly, I don’t believe that is the case. The fallout from this seems to have already fallen squarely on the shoulders of George Bush, according to many who lament the death of the brutal dictator. Is blaming Bush for this a case of Bush Derangement Syndrome? We already know that people int he Arab world have been raised to hate Westerners, because we are ‘the descendants of pigs and monkeys’.

Saddam’s burial was in his home town of Tikrit where a concentration of his Sunni Baathist supporters still are, his body flown there by American helicopter. “flown by American helicopter” is showing up in many reports, probably to ease the tension in the Sunni community. It is the Americans who intervened when the Iraq government wanted his grave to be unmarked and unknown. Whether this was wise, I’m not entirely certain.

Because there is merit to the suggestion that he should have been buried in a place unknown; it would have prevented his admirers from using his tomb as a martyr’s shrine, inspiring his barbaric supporters to shed more blood. But as the details around his hanging emerge, it would appear as though regardless of the facts- this was a Shiite retaliation rather than a state-run execution. And regardless of the facts-this will inflame violence between the different muslim groups, as some vowed at Saddam’s grave to make themselves into human bombs to avenge him.

And for those who keep bleating that Saddam was secular, why would he then carry the Koran to the gallows, and say the prayer of the first pillar of Islam. The Shia recite the Shia form of the Shahada, inserting a common Sadrist chant (from Allah Pundit at Hot Air);

The room was quiet as everyone began to pray, including Mr. Hussein. “Prayers be upon Mohammed and his holy family.”

Two guards added, “Supporting his son Moktada, Moktada, Moktada.”

Mr. Hussein seemed a bit stunned, swinging his head in their direction.

They were talking about Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric whose militia is now committing some of the worst violence in the sectarian fighting; he is the son of a revered Shiite cleric, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who many believe Mr. Hussein had murdered.

“Moktada?” he spat out, a mix between sarcasm and disbelief.

You can hear that in the video if you listen closely. It sounds like he laughs after he says it.

Saddam solemnly recites the Sunni version of the Shahada prayer but the trap door is opened before he can finish.

This is like denying him last rights. In addition to their having taunted him every 30 minutes all night with the hanging rope, denying him a last meal and even a last cigarette, they deliver another insult by not allowing him to finish his Shahada. And none of this, I’m sure has been lost on the Sunni minority in Iraq. So today when I re-read Maliki’s reaching out to the Sunnis, it seems sarcastic and dishonest.

“Saddam’s execution puts an end to all the pathetic gambles on a return to dictatorship,” he said, in a statement as state television showed him signing the death warrant in red ink. “I urge … followers of the ousted regime to reconsider their stance as the door is still open to anyone who has no innocent blood on his hands to help in rebuilding … Iraq.”

Instead, it seems as though “The door is still open”…for angry Sunnis to avenge “Father Saddam’s” death, striking out at the American infidel occupiers of their land, and the Shia who betrayed them on the first of the Sunni holy days of EID. I doubt that this insult will be forgotten when ‘honor’ and violent male domination is so important in that culture. They use any excuse to burn churches, rape women, and torture and kill men; even muslim men, when they have that irresistable urge. Mens’ urges are not to be contained; that’s why they’re so afraid of women’s sexuality they need them to be covered. But this is also why they can’t behave as though they’re civilized; they have no self-restraint. Raped women are at fault because they’re provocative. Honor killings are the woman’s fault, if they’d behaved honorably, their fathers and brothers wouldn’t have had to kill them. It surely is a backwards worldview.

I gather that after Saddam was hanging, they wanted to desecrate his corpse, but they were prevented.

From the Guardian:

“This is the best Eid gift for humanity,” said Saad bin Tifla al-Ajmi, former information minister of Kuwait, the oil-rich state invaded by Saddam’s forces in 1990. Others saw it as a mockery of their religion. Pakistani pilgrim Manzar Muhammad Baloch likened Saddam to a sacrificial sheep. “This is a warning to all the leaders in the third world,” he told Arab News. “If America so chooses, this will be your fate too.”

It wouldn’t be a bad thing for Islamist leaders to think that. We have several Hitlers in the making in the Middle East if they can’t adjust to civilization and continue to force us back to the 7th century with their thirst for killing the infidel and their quest to conquer the world. Moammar Gadhafi announced a three-day official mourning period, cancelling celebrations for Eid. To my knowledge, he’s the only leader in the region who did this to honor Saddam.

I have some thoughts after having viewed the hanging a few times. To my understanding, a hanging in the middle east is done quite differently than it’s done in the west; it’s a long agonizing strangulation. If that’s incorrect, would someone please set me straight in comments? Yet in the case of Saddam, it was done swiftly and his neck was broken. The executioners actually warned him that if he didn’t wear a hood, that the rope might take his head off, which is the reason for the black cloth around his neck.

Next, it’s been pointed out by Zeyad that it was the Shiites, not United Iraq who delivered his death sentence, and that Iraqis delivering justice to him together would have been better than this. It seems few believe Saddam’s death will have any effect as far as eliminating sectarian violence in Iraq. Because in addition to what’s been covered here already, Maliki’s men, who carefully chose the former Iraqi Military Intelligence (5th Department) compound at Kadhimiya, Baghdad, also known as “Camp Justice” for the execution, including some of the witnesses, had themselves been Saddam’s captives and had been tortured in the very building where Saddam met his end. This appears to be a Shia act of vengeance rather than the nation of Iraq delivering justice.

Now there will be a ‘probe’ by the Iraq government to see how that cell phone video got out. To the world,this may appear as though they’re trying to find out how it could have been possible that they taunted him and exchanged insults with him to the end. In my opinion,it was a good thing, because it leads to a better understanding of Iraq’s problems. But it could be that Maliki is just laughing at American stupidity, and looking for a way to keep that sort of thing from coming out in the future. With state-run television and media, you could only expect as much.

To some, his death preempts future opportunities for any more of his victims to confront him with his crimes. I’m certain that Maliki is a celebrity among the Shia at the moment, but it might prove to be a cheap trick that backfires. The days ahead will show us.

Rick Moran had some thoughts about Saddam that are worth the read, before he met his demise.

It is embarrassing the way that some of the righty blogs are playing with this story. It is not a time for snark. Nor is it a time for juvenile posturing or ginned up, testosterone-laden high fives. Before you engage in such celebratory behavior, please imagine the million ghosts Saddam and his henchmen created and then imagine them screaming out their last agonizing moments on this earth. Think of the grieving families they left behind. If that doesn’t sober you up, try conjuring up images of the tens of thousands of women who were brutally raped in front of their fathers or husbands or the many thousands of children who were tortured in the presence of their parents.

No, there is nothing funny about killing this brute, a man who has shown no remorse nor the slightest flicker of regret at the trail of dead bodies he has left in the wake of a life spent torturing and murdering anyone who opposed him. The fact that the world knew of this brutality and did nothing about it – including the US government who marginally assisted the beast in his war of conquest against Iran – only goes to show that anyone who believes in the efficacy of the UN is only kidding themselves. Tyrants like Saddam will exist as long as the governments of the world carry on business as usual with the despots while trying to block the screams of their victims from conscious thought.