Saddam Hussein's Day of Justice

An Exclusive Dispatch From Baghdad: PJM in Baghdad November 5, 2006 4:26 AM Pajamas Media Baghdad editors Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, of Iraq The Model, write their first impressions after Saddam Hussein’s death sentence was delivered. I was overwhelmed with joy and relief as I watched the criminals being read their verdicts. For the first time in our region tyrants are being punished for their crimes through a court of law. Until this moment and while I’m typing these words I’m still receiving words of congratulations in emails, phone calls and text messages from friends inside and outside the country. These were our only means to share our happiness because of the curfew that limits our movement. This is the day for Saddam’s lovers to weep and I expect their shock and grieve to be huge. They had always thought their master was immortal so let them live in their disappointment while we live for our future. This is a day not only for Iraqis but a historic day for the whole region; today new basis for dealing between rulers and peoples are found.No one is above the law anymore. I was particularly pleased by the way Judge Raouf Rasheed handled the session; he was reading the court’s decision and at the same time chastising members of the current government for their misbehavior and threatened to throw them in custody regardless of their ranks! We are living a new era where there’s much hope despite the difficulties…our sacrifices have a noble cause, that is to build a new model that obviously terrifies other tyrants. I believe it wasn’t Saddam alone who was shaking and shouting in hysteria when the verdict was read; I can see hysteria takes over all of Saddam’s followers and apologists. Today we had turned a page that was full of pain and ugly crimes that were committed by the same criminals who were shaking in the hands of Iraq’s new justice. We were among the first to bring Saddam’s crimes in Dujail to the surface in this blog almost three years ago even before cases were chosen or a tribunal was formed.I did that because one of my friends was a direct victim of that crime when he was thrown in prison in the middle of the desert when he was only 7 years old along with his mother and a younger sister and lost 30 members of his extended family over the years of that tragedy. Some people back then questioned the credibility of my friend’s story and couldn’t believe the crimes of Saddam were that cruel and inhuman. But today that the truth is out there for the whole world to see, the criminals stand small and shaking while the families of the victims stand proud seeing justice served. Right now volleys of bullets ring not far from where I sit, some are fired to express joy while others are fired in a desperate expression of denial but I have no doubt who is going to prevail. Although the road is long but we are walking forward and will not look back. I salute the honorable special tribunal that challenged threats and risks and insisted on keeping up the work until the end, and today it brought back the pride of the land that wrote the world’s first laws. I salute the witnesses who risked their lives to reveal the truth and expose the crimes of the dictator. I salute the brave men and women of the coalition who came to this land and made this day possible. Congratulations to all my Iraqi brothers and sisters on this glorious day.