Baghdad, Iraq – Although state-run TV sought to dramatize the execution of Saddam Hussein by airing the video of his hanging and grainy reels documenting his years of torture, many Iraqis said the death of the man who personified Iraq’s past would do little to rid the new Iraq of the problems it faces – sectarianism, ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and towns, and lack of services.
While many said they were thrilled that Hussein had been punished, they also said they did not believe his death would lead to immediate change in their lives, saying Hussein became largely irrelevant three years ago when U.S. forces found him hiding in a bunker near his hometown.
“Executing Saddam will not change anything because we have many Saddam still,” said Mohammed Latif, a 35-year-old day-worker from Baghdad, referring to Iraq’s current government.
As the state-sponsored news channels saturated Iraqi airwaves with images of the noose going around Hussein’s neck early Saturday, residents offered a surprisingly muted response.
The celebratory crowds were smaller than when the dictator surrendered to U.S. forces three years ago. And the expected promise of reprisal attacks did not come the way they did when the trial charging him with crimes against humanity began 14 months ago. Even in Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, the rallying around the hometown hero was barren, especially compared with a month ago when he was sentenced to death.
Still, for long-oppressed Shiites, it was a moment of release.
“This chapter of Iraqi history is over,” said Mouwaffak al- Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, speaking on national television early Saturday. “Let us forget it and live with each other.”
The new Iraq appears capable of inflicting only more of the abuse it suffered for so long, perpetuating it with overwhelming brutality.
As vicious as he was, Hussein also held the country firmly together. Beyond military control, there was a subtle social glue: Iraqis of all sects loved to hate Hussein together. Now that he is gone, Shiites are afraid to joke with Sunnis about him, and Sunnis feel they are being blamed for his crimes.
Ahmed Hillu, a 32-year-old tailor, whose suits hung on the walls of his narrow shop in Sadr City like a mute chorus, recalled watching from a hiding spot in an empty area in northeastern Baghdad as elite members of Hussein’s regime gunned down large groups of Shiite opposition members. He was 6 at the time. That area, an old dam called Qasr Attash, is now one of the most common body-dumping sites for Shiite militias.
Hussein spared almost no one in his murderous ways, but Shiites were particularly abused as a group. That systematic mistreatment seems to have left lasting scars that carry through to the current day, infusing neophyte leaders with an uncompromising and emotional approach to running things.
“When they put the rope on his neck, did he remember how many innocent people he killed?” said Husam Abdul Hussein Jasim, a watch-store owner in Sadr City, on whose wall were swinging synchronized pendulums. “He’s like a Satan.”
Hillu, sitting behind a counter piled high with a television, plastic flowers and cellphone cards, said: “He didn’t represent anything for me. He was just a death grip imposed on our neck.”
Even though their oppressor had been hanged, Shiites in northeastern Baghdad were giving no parties. Blocks had none of their usual bustle. Even the office of the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was closed.
The response was markedly different from the reaction after the November verdict and sentencing of Hussein to death, when Silly String and sweets were plied in equal measure.
For some Iraqis, previous humiliations were enough to feel justice had been done.
Smeisam, a teacher in the largely Shiite area of Binouk, said her mother, whose parents had been murdered by the regime, said the moment of revenge came sweetly for her when she saw the footage of American soldiers pulling Hussein out of the spider hole near Tikrit in December 2003.
Her husband, Mukaram, was completely unsentimental.
“Truly, I feel nothing,” he said. “He executed so many people. Now, it is his turn. For me, he died when he was arrested, so he was not important at all.”
Hussein’s execution took place early on a day that for Sunni Arabs was the beginning of the Eid al-Adha holiday. (Shiites will begin celebrating today.)
If Shiites saw the hanging as a gift, most Sunnis were revolted that, in what appeared to be a violation of Iraqi law, the execution was scheduled on a holiday of forgiveness.
“Actually, I felt angry,” Abdul Aziz said. “It’s not a proper time. I assure you, those who are feeling that this is a good time and a good judgment, they are not Iraqis.”
Others, namely Kurds, opposed the quick hanging. Now Hussein will not testify in other important genocide cases, especially the trial over the Anfal military campaign against the Kurds, in which he is accused of unleashing mass killings and chemical attacks that killed tens of thousands of villagers.
