Protests of Saddam's hanging spreading across Iraq

[ProSense]

Iraq Plans Inquiry Into Hussein Execution

By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: January 2, 2007

BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 — With angry demonstrations spreading across Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland, the country’s Shiite-led government said today that it had ordered an investigation into the disorderly scenes at the execution of Saddam Hussein, who was mocked and taunted by Shiite witnesses and guards as he stood on the gallows.

Iraqi officials said a three-member committee of the Interior Ministry would investigate scenes that have raised outrage among Mr. Hussein’s Sunni Arab loyalists and widespread consternation elsewhere as video recordings of the execution have been broadcast around the world.

Snip...

Controversy over the execution has escalated since it was carried out at dawn on Saturday in an execution chamber in the northern Baghdad district of Khadamiya that was previously used for hundreds of hangings by Mr. Hussein’s military intelligence agency. Anger has centered on the role of Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, in short-circuiting constitutional and legal processes to hasten Mr. Hussein to the gallows on the day when Iraq’s Sunnis were beginning the annual, four-day religious festival known as Id al-Adha.

But consternation at the government’s haste to carry out the death sentence passed on Mr. Hussein in November for crimes against humanity has been compounded among critics of the execution by the manner in which it was carried out. Video images recorded by cellphones have shown Mr. Hussein, with the noose around his neck, facing shouts of “Go to hell!” and taunts of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!” — in reference to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who has become a populist hero among many Shiites or to the death squads acting in his name that have killed thousands of Iraqi Sunnis.

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Iraq probes grisly Saddam death video

by Jay Deshmukh 1 hour, 38 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (AFP) -
Iraq launched a probe into a grisly video of Saddam Hussein's controversial execution that has triggered angry protests from the country's Sunni minority three days after his hanging.

As government officials began their investigation, thousands of Sunnis -- many of them openly armed with assault rifles and rocket launchers -- continued their demonstrations in and around Saddam's hometown Tikrit.

An official close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the inquiry would find out who secretly filmed Saddam's execution -- apparently with a mobile phone -- and then distributed it.

The grainy video showing Saddam being taunted by Shiite witnesses, including one who shouted the name of a radical Shiite cleric, has spread like wildfire on the Internet and between mobile phones since Saturday's hanging.

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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Apocalypse II in Samarra
US Kills 6 at National Dialogue Front Office

CBS/AP report that an angry crowd of Sunni Arab demonstrators in the northern city of Samarra, protesting Saddam's execution, broke "broke the locks off the badly damaged Shiite Golden Dome mosque and marched through carrying a mock coffin and photo of the executed former leader."

Folks, this is very bad news. The Askariyah Shrine (it isn't just a mosque) is associated with the Hidden Twelfth Imam, who is expected by Shiites to appear at the end of time to restore the world to justice. (For them, the Imam Mahdi is sort of like the second coming of Christ for Christians). The Muqtada al-Sadr movement is millenarian and believes he will reveal himself at any moment.

The centrality of the cult of the Twelfth Imam, a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who is said to have vanished in 873 AD, helps explain why the bombing of the Golden Dome on February 21 of 2006 set off a frenzy of Shiite, Sadrist attacks on Sunni Arabs. Last February, stuck in a Phoenix hotel because of a missed flight and without an internet connection for my laptop, I blogged from my Treo that it was an apocalyptic day. Sadly, it was, kicking off a frenzy of sectarian violence that has grown each subsequent month.

For Sunni Arabs to parade a symbolic coffin of Saddam through the ruins of the Askariya shrine won't be exactly good for social peace in Iraq. Can't that site be properly guarded or something?

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