Update: Gone!

Executed between 9:30 - 10:00PM EST - still images and video said to be taken. Celebrations break out in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Dec 30 (Reuters) - U.S.-backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday....

According to Arabia.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The official witnesses to Saddam Hussein's impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities.

6AM in Iraq, no word, yet. Helicopters seen over the city.

Word is Saddam has now reached the execution site.

According to Fox, all preperations are in order.

Some details and history on Hussein via Gateway Pundit.

PJM is reporting and Michelle has a round up of links.

Updates to follow.

Comments

[Darth Malice]

Waiting....

[Darth Malice]

Ding Dong he's finito

[lily]

It's about durned time. By the way, how much did this cost us? And another thing, why are we watching MSM explain to us how careful they are being about honoring his burial considerations? Did any of his victims receive the same consideration?

Um, no.

May he rot in hell.

[Darth Malice]

Lily Cnn looks sad.....All those Kurds will get a ringside seat of Saddams judgement by God.

[docweasel]

Strangely enough, Atrios and MyDD as well as most lefty blogs have zero mention, I mean NOTHING about this. Kos has one diarist who blockquotes the news report and adds a sarcastic line about how it won't mean peace for Iraq.

The big elephant in the room, that the moonbats never care to mention or admit, that for all the violence and killing in Iraq, it was systematic and systemic in Saddam era Iraq. For all the bad that's there now, its STILL better than it was 4 years ago.

But of course GWB is blamed for the fact that the US can't establish a peaceful democratic Utopia in a land that has no experience with it, in the most violent and restive part of the world for centuries, and pacify it in only a few years.

As I recall, it took the U.S. nearly 90 years to work out its democracy past the point where 100's of thousands of Americans weren't killing each other in a "civil war", as NBC of the time might have framed it.

But of course even the yellow press of those days wasn't as treasonous or America hating as the press of today.

[coconuttree]

Oké, one Middle East dictator gone. Who follows. Maybe Condoleeza should find some weapons of mass destruction in Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia. Saddam was able the become the tyrant he was, with the help from the USA. He got lot of help from the US administration during the Irak-Iran war. With the slogan "your enemies are my enemies", the USA have sided with a lot of dictators. Without that backing the people of these countries could overtrow these tyrants themselves.

[Phoenix]

"Without that backing the people of these countries could overtrow these tyrants themselves."

So why don't they? Happiness is warm oppression?

[Sgt.York]

I have issues with the fact that S.H. was captured by and was a prisoner of the USA Military and should have been held according to the G.C. - instead, U.S. soldiers shuttled him back and forth from a US Military jail to a goofball Iraqi sham 'trial' and then the US Military escorted S.H. to his hanging. I don't like the pretense that the puppets were in charge, I don't like pretend goofball trials, and I don't like the way somebody ordered the US Military to violate the standing regulations and protocols for captured prisoners of war.

My 2-cents.

==============================

[old trooper]

OK then, when the old bastard was caught, he was armed. Two quick shots could have spared the expense and trouble of a trial. It would be the same respect that he gave those in the mass graves.

[docweasel]

Jeez Sgt York, too bad they didn't treat the Nazies that way at Nuremburg either.

Saddam should have been tucked in every night with an eiderdown quilt, spoonfed cake and jam every morning and allowed to engage in his favorite passtimes of throwing people into woodchippers in the afternoon.

This guy "deserved" nothing but the end of the rope. The trial was merely for the public record. It was only "goofball" because he and his defendents (not to mention wacky Ramsey Clark) continually disrupted it. Your judgement of Iraqi jurisprudence smacks of some kind of condescension, like the Iraqis aren't capable of establishing a judicial system.

I'd say Saddam got more justice than the Duke 3. If you are looking for goof-ball justice systems, the US version, 230+ years old, sometimes fits the bill. The Iraqis aren't doing badly for only 3 years out, I'd say.

[Purple Avenger]

"Without that backing the people of these countries could overtrow these tyrants themselves."

Yep, that US backing really kept the Soviet in power.

[prather]

Jesus - it's all very well gloating about Old Spittle Beard taking the long drop, but there's a serious side to this. That dude owed some of us money. Who's gonna pay now?
Here in Ireland, we supplied him with beef, to feed his army while they tortured and murdered. Your Mr Rumsfeld helped him do business with the arms trade. When he wanted to spray chemicals on the Kurds, there were a lot of people didn't get paid for the helicopters he used. From 1991, the fucker welshed on his debts. Hanging the guy is all very well, but who do we sue now?

[old trooper]

Sue the IRA first.

Then get back to US.