RELATIVELY SPEAKING, Saddam got off easy. The execution of the former Iraqi dictator was carried out with little fanfare. He was defiant to the end, saying, "Iraq without me is nothing," though he did look frightened. He refused a hood, which was then wrapped around his neck like a scarf. There were taunts and jeers from the small crowd (mostly in support of Moktada al-Sadr). And while Saddam was in mid-sentence, probably answering back to his executors, the trapdoor opened beneath him. He went down with a loud bang. Death seems to have come swiftly for Hussein, whose neck was probably snapped in an instant (as proper hangings are meant to do). Not long after, the corpse of the dictator was sent back to his family for a proper burial in Tikrit, alongside his sons, Uday and Qusay.
In an essay for Policy Review published a year ago, I speculated on how Saddam's inevitable demise would compare with the executions of other dictators and their ilk throughout history. Most notable were the hangings of Nazi war criminals in October 1946 following the Nuremberg trials, carefully documented by Whitney R. Harris in Tyranny on Trial:
"At eleven minutes past one o-clock in the morning . . . [Former Third Reich foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop] stepped through the door into the execution chamber and faced the gallows on which he and the others . . . were to be hanged. His hands were unmanacled and bound behind him with a leather thong.
Ribbentrop walked to the foot of the thirteen stairs leading to the gallows platform. He was asked to state his name, and answered weakly, 'Joachim von Ribbentrop.' Flanked by two guards and followed by the chaplain, he slowly mounted the stairs. On the platform he saw the hangman with the noose of thirteen coils and the hangman's assistant with the black hood [Saddam's noose had seven coils]. He stood on the trap, and his feet were bound with a webbed army belt." His final words were, "God protect Germany, God have mercy on my soul. My last wish is that German unity be maintained, that understanding between East and West be realized and there be peace for the world." Unlike Saddam, Ribbentrop dangled for some 20 minutes before expiring.
The bodies of Ribbentrop and the others, however, were not simply returned to their families for burial. Instead, as Anthony Read reported in The Devil's Disciples, "a container holding all the ashes was driven away into the Bavarian countryside, in the rain. It stopped in a quiet lane about an hour later, and the ashes were poured into a muddy ditch." For Nazi sympathizers, there was little left that was tangible.
On the other hand, Saddam's burial plot is quite tangible. Located in his hometown of Tikrit, the grave could well become a shrine, a place to venerate the dictator. Saddam's supporters will be vigilant against acts of vengeance by the aggrieved, especially Shiites and Kurds who wanted the dictator tried for numerous other crimes. Historically, the aggrieved have not stopped seeking vengeance after the death of a foe.
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