His father died before he was born and his mother is said to have been suicidal when she was carrying him, trying to abort the pregnancy.
Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator who spent his last years in captivity after his ruthless regime was toppled by the U.S.-led coalition in 2003, was hanged before dawn Saturday for crimes committed in a brutal crackdown during his reign.
The execution took place shortly after 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told Iraqi television.
"This dark page has been turned over," Rubaie said. "Saddam is gone. Today Iraq is an Iraq for all the Iraqis, and all the Iraqis are looking forward. ... The [Hussein] era has gone forever."
Rubaie said that Hussein carried with him a copy of the Quran and asked that it be given to "a certain person." Rubaie did not identify that person.
On Al-Arabiya television, Rubaie said the execution took place at the 5th Division intelligence office in Qadhimiya. He said Hussein refused to wear a black hood over his head before execution and told him "don't be afraid."
White House deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel said President Bush was asleep when the execution took place and was not awakened. The president had been briefed by national security adviser Stephen Hadley before retiring and was aware the hanging was imminent, Stanzel said.
The White House issued a statement praising the Iraqi people for giving Hussein a fair trial.
"Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule," Bush's statement read. "It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial." (
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The execution took place outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, Rubaie said, and no Americans were present.
"It was an Iraqi operation from A to Z," he said. "The Americans were not present during the hour of the execution. They weren't even in the building."
He added that "there were no Shiite or Sunni clerics present, only the witnesses and those who carried out the actual execution were present."
Hussein was hanged for his role in the 1982 Dujail massacre, in which 148 Iraqis were killed after a failed assassination attempt against the then-Iraqi president. (
Watch what happened in Dujail )
Two other co-defendants -- Barzan Hassan, Hussein's half-brother, and Awwad Bandar, the former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court -- were also found guilty and had been expected to face execution with Hussein, but Rubaie said their executions were postponed.
"We chose to postpone Barzan and Awwad's execution to a later date because we wanted to have this day to have an historic distinction," he said. "We wanted to have one specific date for Saddam so people remember this date to be linked to Saddam's execution and nothing else."
Rubaie said the execution was videotaped and photographed extensively from the time Hussein was transferred from U.S. to Iraqi custody until he was dead.
Many of those who witnessed the execution celebrated in the aftermath. (
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"Saddam's body is in front me," said an official in the prime minister's office when CNN telephoned. "It's over."
In the background, Shiite chanting could be heard. When asked about the chanting, the official said, "These are employees of the prime minister's office and government chanting in celebration." (
Watch what Hussein's death could mean in Iraq )
He said that celebrations broke out after Hussein was dead, and that there was "dancing around the body."
Iraqi-Americans celebrated in the street in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Iraqis in the United States. (
Watch Iraqi-Americans dancing, kissing and singing in the streets )
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not attend the execution, according to an adviser to the prime minister who was interviewed on state television.
"It's a very solemn moment for me," Feisal Istrabadi, Iraq's U.N. ambassador, said on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360." "I can understand why some of my compatriots may be cheering. I have friends whose particular people I can think of who have lost 10, 15, 20 members of their family, more.
"But for me, it's a moment really of remembrance of the victims of Saddam Hussein."
Friday evening, a U.S. district judge refused a request to stay the execution.
Attorney Nicholas Gilman said in an application for a restraining order, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, that a stay would allow Hussein "to be informed of his rights and take whatever action he can and may wish to pursue."
Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld the former dictator's death sentence, called Gilman's filing "rubbish," and said, "It will not delay carrying out the sentence," which he called "final."
Throughout the day, there were conflicting reports about who had custody of Hussein. Giovanni di Stefano, one of Hussein's defense attorneys, told CNN the U.S. military officially informed him that the former Iraqi dictator had been transferred to Iraqi custody, but that the move in U.S. court could have meant that Hussein was back in U.S. custody.
There had been speculation that Hussein would be executed before Eid Al-Adha -- a holiday period that means Feast of the Sacrifice, celebrated by Muslims around the world at the climax of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. The law does not permit executions to be carried out during religious holidays.
Eid began Saturday for Sunnis and begins Sunday for Shiites. It lasts for four days. Hussein was a Sunni Muslim.
The capture of Saddam Hussein three years ago was a jubilant moment for the White House, hailed by President Bush in a televised address from the Cabinet Room. The execution of Hussein, though, seemed hardly to inspire the same sentiment.
Since his arrest on Dec. 13, 2003, Hussein has gradually faded from view, save for his courtroom outbursts and writings from prison. The growing chaos and violence in Iraq has steadily overshadowed the torturous rule of Hussein, who for more than two decades held a unique place in the politics and psyche of the United States, a symbol of the manifestation of evil in the Middle East.
Now, what could have been a triumphal bookend to the American invasion of Iraq has instead been dampened by the grim reality of conditions on the ground there. Hussein's hanging means that the ousted leader has been held accountable for his misdeeds, fulfilling the American war aim most cited by the White House after Iraq's weapons of mass destruction proved nonexistent.
But that war is now edging toward its fifth year, and the sectarian violence that has surged independent of any old Sunni or Baathist allegiances to Hussein has raised questions about what change, if any, his death might bring.
"Saddam's face has been on this process from the beginning and here goes that face," said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. "But in many respects, he's a bit player now."
Even as a bit player, though, the specter of Hussein remained intimately entwined with Bush and his father, George H. W. Bush. Two years after the Persian Gulf war, Hussein ordered an assassination attempt on the elder Bush, an act of spite that the 43rd president would never forget.
"There's no doubt his hatred is mainly directed at us," the current president said, speaking to a Republican fund-raising crowd in Houston on Sept. 26, 2002. "This is the man who tried to kill my dad."
For his part, Hussein referred to the younger Bush as "son of the viper." He delivered a famous snub of the 41st president, constructing a mosaic of the elder Bush's face on the floor of the Rashid Hotel, perfectly positioned to be repeatedly stepped on. After the American troops reached Baghdad, they crushed the mosaic.
When Hussein was captured, the president said: "Good riddance, the world is better off without you." But he dismissed suggestions that a family grudge played a role in shaping his Iraq policy or influenced his decision to go to war. "My personal views," he said, "aren't important in this matter."
But Buchanan, a longtime observer of the Bush political family in Texas, said that these were no ordinary archenemies and that setting aside personal views entirely seemed impossible.
"I think the president will see this as justice done and may well feel some sense of vindication, in part because of the attempt on his father's life," he said. "It's definitely part of the drama."
Here in Crawford, where the president is spending the week between Christmas and New Year's, aides planned for how the White House would respond to Hussein's execution. They quickly ruled out the idea of putting the president in front of television cameras, fearful of sending a message that Bush was crowing or that the United States was orchestrating the execution, which officially was carried out by the Iraqi government.
But a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy, also acknowledged that the challenges in Iraq contributed to the president's decision to simply issue a brief written statement after the execution. The White House concluded that even a development as dramatic as Hussein's hanging could not be used to renew support for the war.
"Americans have already taken that into account," said Frank Newport, the editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. "The benefits of deposing Saddam Hussein are far exceeded by the cost of the war."
Indeed, a Gallup poll taken Dec. 8 to 10 showed that 64 percent of Americans said the costs of the war outweighed the benefits. Only 33 percent disagreed, saying the benefits — including the ouster of Hussein — outweighed the costs.
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