"Chuck horner:" "Saddam Hussein was a narcisstic megalomaniac." "Zainab salbi:" "He violated our country, violated our people, violated my own family." "Dan rather:" "Never before had i been in the presence with pure, unadulterated evil." "Dr. al-rubaie:" "It was me and him." "I looked at his neck." "I have to admit, i was tempted." "* [Theme music plays] *" "*" "Dan rather:" "This man's a stone-cold killer." "I've never met anybody like Saddam Hussein." "Totally ruthless." "He had a long history of extreme brutality to his own people." "Anyone who even gave the slightest hint of dissent, whether they were sunni, shiite, Buddhist, Christian..." "[Gunshot]" "He assassinated all kinds of people." "Dr. al-rubaie:" "When i think of Saddam Hussein, i can go through a series of atrocities he has committed." "Started the iran/iraq war, we lost half a million martyrs then." "Saddam, he's probably the only ruler who has used chemical weapon against him own people." "He invaded Kuwait, and we lost hundreds of thousands of lives." "After that, Iraq was subjected to the most brutal sanction by the international community." "The popular uprising." "Saddam sent more than three quarters of a million of my people to mass graves." "Man:" "Am i going to die like this?" "Dr. al-rubaie:" "And after that..." "President bush:" "Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours." "Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict." "Dr. al-rubaie:" "In 2003 we decided to fight the whole world." "He has never shown any remorse, any repentance." "The man did not apologize for a single crime." "Zainab salbi:" "When Saddam took over, it was 1979." "And he called the parliament, the Iraqi parliament, and there was a very famous footage." "I was watching that news with my mom, in the kitchen, black and white TV." "I remember my mom more glued to the, to the TV and sort of tense." "And I'm a child at that time, I'm only 10 years old." "And he just called members of the parliament by names, and they stood up, and they were taken away." "These men had a different opinion from Saddam, and they were executed immediately." "It was one of his first demonstrations of power and strength." "Group:" "Live, live!" "Long live the people!" "Zainab salbi:" "One of the men who were called was my best friend's father, and after the, the session on TV, she turned to me and she said," ""zainab, you can no longer see basma anymore."" "Basma, my girlfriend, did not show up to the class the next day, did not show up, actually, for a couple of months." "She came, i think only a few days into school and everyone, the teachers, were so afraid of her." "She never showed up again to school, and i actually still don't know what happened to her." "Dr. al-rubaie:" "I graduated in Baghdad medical school in 1972." "I was working in karama hospital in Baghdad." "I was in the climax of my political civil right activities." "I was promoting human rights, community rights, tried to get people to speak out." "At the end of 1978, i was arrested." "I was tortured physically, mentally, and psychologically." "It was absolute murder." "They used the electric shock in the most sensitive areas in your genitalia." "The experience is unimaginable." "And hanging me to the fan, the fan would start going around, and beating me." "My blood pressure used to go down, and i used to lose consciousness." "I saw Saddam Hussein in the eyes of all those who tortured me." "I never thought that, "i will get out of here, alive."" "It was much better for me to die, rather than confessing." "I probably knew 1,000 activists in Baghdad:" "Their names, their addresses, and their telephone numbers." "I was very prepared to die." "But thank goodness, both kidneys packed up." "I went into what you call "acute renal shutdown."" "I couldn't pass water." "I was swollen all over, probably two times this size." "And they thought that I'm going to die." "They released me to die at home." "I was lucky enough to survive." "My wife used to work for a British council." "She told the, the guy who was in charge of the" "British council that i was released from prison and i want to finish my post-graduate studies." "I was out of Iraq." "Even i was in London, every single day i used to go to hospitals, work, and he's in my mind." "I can't get rid of that image of Saddam Hussein." "Torturing, intimidating, persecuting my people, killing my people." "Zainab salbi:" "I only knew about the volume of his crimes when i came to America." "That's when my eyes opened up and i realized," ""oh my god."" "I grew up in Baghdad." "Upper middle class family." "My father was a pilot, my mom was a teacher." "They were western educated, they danced to western music." "It was a Friday afternoon, we were all at home, and suddenly the cul-de-sac is filled with Mercedes and soldiers and everything." "And suddenly Saddam Hussein enters my home." "And he knew me, and he's like, "ahhh, this is zainab."" "So as a child, i was like, "how does he know me?" "This is the president!"" "I never knew that my parents knew Saddam." "It started in the early '70s." "This whole crowd of friends were, rented a boat in the tigris river, and they had a picnic on one of the islands." "All of a sudden they're trying to get off and they see this man with a white suit, white shirt, and he is waiting for them." "Who is this person?" "Like, like it's silly, he's wearing all white." "And someone whispered, "he's Saddam Hussein."" "He took one couple at a time and gave them exclusive attention." "When they came back, it was clear that uh, he wanted to be friends." "He made our friendship public, and that's when the neighbors start being afraid of us." "This was the beginning of a relationship that it will be hard to get out of." "He had his military friends, he had his political friends, we were his social friends." "We were like the jesters in his palace, we would introduce him to all of this society way of living." "When he had a foreign visitor we would go and speak with them in English." "My father was already a commercial pilot, and he became his private pilot in 1982." "Everything in our house was bugged." "We were cut off from the society, our life evolved around his." "Every single weekend, we would go and be the happy family entertaining amu;" "amu is "uncle" in arabic." "We had informal rules of engagement." "My mom used to say, "if amu laughs, always laugh with him." "And if he cries, always cry with him."" "He had a very particular laughter, you know, it's like," ""heh, heh, heh, heh."" "By early '80s, there was a creation of a cult of personality." "He is the father, the brother, the uncle, the, the everything in the country." "He was the leader of the country." "Dan rather:" "If you want to understand one thing more than any other about Saddam Hussein, and what motivated him, what drove him, is this:" "That he would be the new saladin, an arab conqueror marching triumphantly through the streets of Jerusalem." "That was his driving dream." "Zainab salbi:" "It was history that we were taught in school." "You know:" "Saladin, the battle with the persians, all of that was taught to us as the present." "The past and the present emerge as one thing, and now it is Saddam." "From saladin to Saddam." "Adel darwish:" "Very much like Mussolini, and Hitler, and Stalin, these kind of totalitarian dictator." "He wanted to really twist the neck of history, to interpret it the way he wanted it to be." "There's a very interesting statement in" "George orwell's 1984: "He who controls the present can author the past, and author the past to fit the present, can control the future."" "*" "Adel darwish:" "Saddam ranks as a special category of dictator." "He is the godfather of a family of dictators." "1972, i was 27 years old, which is baby in fleet street in those days." "We were in most lavish hotel in Baghdad." "Some gentlemen came and spoke to me in arabic, and they said, "Mr. deputy would like to invite her majesty's press corps for after-lunch drink."" "There were only three people from the British press, one radio, one observer, and me." "And that's when i first encountered Saddam Hussein." "I'd never heard of him." "What i was quite confused about, that people actually trembling with fear, who would actually bring the drinks to us." "He was talking about analysis, economics, and politics." "He said, "have you seen this film, "the godfather"?" "'My father made him an offer he can't refuse.' ha, ha, ha."" "He just loved this expression." "But he was talking about the strength of that figure, and how history put great responsibility upon his shoulders." "It was very much the script of his life." "Saddam played the godfather, Saddam acted as the godfather." "Even when he became the president, the way he liquidated his enemies." "When he was in meetings with the other leaders, he was acting like godfather." "Every value we hold dear as humans in the west, would mean absolutely nothing to someone who can see the whole world through this godfather eyes." "Dan rather:" "I never met anyone who exuded such a sense of," ""I'm a survivor."" "If you knew anything about his background, his biography." "Son of a peasant on the outskirts of tikrit." "He'd been through the political wars, then run out of Iraq, to Syria, to Egypt, spent time in prison." "He had developed this mindset, this psychology:" ""If i survive, i win."" "Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979, at roughly the same time that the ayatollah khomeini came into power into Iran." "In the very early 1980s, Saddam Hussein invaded a portion of Iran, claiming it was historically part Iraq." "But he invaded part of Iran to get some of their oil fields." "While he was deemed a, a brutal dictator, the Reagan administration had made a decision." "Don rumsfeld was their private, secret, emissary to make a deal with Saddam Hussein, to lean his way in the war with Iran." "And the deal was that the United States would give agriculture credits to Saddam Hussein, which he could then trade the money on the open market to buy weapons for this 8-year, long, terrible war with Iran in which hundreds of thousands of" "people lost their lives." "You couldn't be in the presence of Saddam Hussein without there being a videotape running somewhere in your head:" "What he had done to his own people, that this man had gassed the kurds, genocide against the kurds." "The people, the families, we found lying all around had not been injured, they'd been poisoned by chemical bombs and shells containing cyanide, mustard, and other nerve gases." "Zainab salbi:" "I was living in the existence of this man as he was committing horror." "And it just continued;" "It's just no one talks about it." "Saddam felt that everything in Iraq belonged to him, and that included women." "He used sex as a divide and conquer." "He would provide the men with prostitutes and women, and that he would sleep with their wives." "He raped many, many women." "It took me years to understand that what my mom, as she saw me growing up, as he saw me growing up, she panicked." "Because i was becoming a woman." "One day, my mom caught him behind me, y'know, watching by the door." "Just watching me." "And she came, and he looked at her, and he said," ""your daughter is beautiful woman."" "And it was small incidences like that, that my mom just panicked." "Hala, the youngest daughter of Saddam, is around the age of my younger brother." "And at one point, they were at our house and she had um, two bodyguards hold my brother and like just swing him and throw him in the mud." "And my brother was not enjoying that, he was just like, did not want to play this game." "But i remember she was like laughing, and she's like, "again."" "And the bodyguards would hold him from his leg and his hands and throw him in the mud." "And she was like, "again!"" "Everyone was frozen in the uncomfort of this scenario." "This kid is not liking this game, and she is having fun." "She's just laughing, "again, again!"" "And the bodyguards are just following the orders of a child." "And then finally my brother splits from the bodyguards, and he just screamed." "[Crying]." "I still cry over this, and it's the silliest things compared, honestly, to what other Iraqis have been through." "But that fear of seeing injustice, be it in a small way or in a big way, be it with my friend's father get executed or my brother get thrown in the mud, you stay silent with this fear." "Because the fear becomes no longer about you, it becomes the consequences of what happens to everyone around you if you speak up." "My mom tried to commit suicide so many times." "So, so, so many times." "And she would cry, and cry, and I'm," "I'm like a teenager at that time, and she would tell me," ""i can see the prison bars." "I can see them, i just cannot prove that they exist."" "The night before the Kuwait war, he came to visit us at home, at night." "And he told us that he had a dream that he was praying, and all of the Muslim nations were praying behind him." "Reporter:" "Kuwait city tonight is a damaged city under heavy occupation." "Thousands of kuwaitis have fled across the desert to other countries." "Dan rather:" "August of 1990." "I was on vacation with my wife and some friends in France." "When the word came that Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, we dropped everything in the vacation and we moved the CBS evening news to Jordan." "The crisis in the persian Gulf is escalating rapidly and dramatically tonight." "I was absolutely convinced that the United States and president h." "W. Bush would not allow it to stand, and i did not think that Saddam would willingly back off." "I thought it would mean war with the United States." "Iraq's president Saddam Hussein said today that Iraq would not be giving up control of Kuwait." "Target one was to interview Saddam Hussein." "And the late fouad ajami, an expert on the region, he said," ""look, i admire you wanting it to happen, but trust me, it will never happen." "He's not gonna be interviewed by you."" "We made the, the estimate that proximity would give us at least some advantage." "We drove in from the, uh, airport." "While Baghdad is on at one level normal, on another level it's on a war footing." "We stayed persistent." "We kept knocking on doors, we kept wanting to have tea." "I probably had more tea over a three-week period than I've ever had in my life." "So we're in the rasheed hotel." "I had the flu, i went to bed early." "And there was a knock on my door at midnight." "Two uniformed men with automatic weapons who said," ""you should come with us."" "And next thing i know, we're passing through what i recognized as the gates of Baghdad palace, and uh Saddam Hussein's main interpreter said right away," ""you're here to interview our president."" "I said, "what?"" "He said, "yes, it's going to happen."" "I said, "when?"" "He said, "now, here."" "And i was escorted into a fairly small room, and Saddam Hussein was there, he was standing." "For just a fleeting second, i was, well, "who knows?" "Maybe this is the way it ends for me."" "Mr. president, thank you for seeing me." "Dan rather:" "To be alone in Baghdad palace, interviewing Saddam Hussein on what i knew then would be the Eve of war, you don't get that kind of story very often." "I suddenly realized, "this is really happening."" "You have two people from two different worlds, really staring at one another." "His eyes, i don't think, ever left my eyes." "Mr. president, you invaded uh, a weak neighbor." "Saddam Hussein:" "Kuwait is part of Iraq." "Dan rather:" "He didn't think the United States would respond militarily." "He used the phrase, "you Americans can't take the blood."" "I remember thinking to myself," ""this man doesn't know what he's talking about."" "What are the chances, Mr. president, that you underestimate the power of the united states military?" "Saddam Hussein:" "The United States relies on the air force." "The air force has never been the decisive factor in, in a battle, in the history of wars." "Dan rather:" "When it was over, i have a world exclusive." "A world exclusive." "And the one thought in my mind was," ""get the hell out of here and get this thing on the air."" "But his interpreter said immediately," ""the president wants to show you around the palace."" "I had to say yes, there really wasn't any choice." "And so Saddam Hussein, we went upstairs, and he began showing me the glories of Baghdad palace, all while my mind is going," ""gotta get out of here, gotta get out of here." "Gotta get this thing on the air."" "And his interpreter, he was trying to get me to hold hands with Saddam Hussein." "The last thing i need is a picture of me holding hands with Saddam Hussein on the front page of every American newspaper." "Looking back on it, that was kinda funny." "Uh, at the time it wasn't humorous at all." "Chuck horner:" "Saddam Hussein was probably the best thing that ever happened to me." "Got me promoted." "I was at Shaw air force base when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait." "Been planning for that for some time." "General schwarzkopf, he'd had anticipated exactly what Saddam Hussein then later did." "We had all the target lists we needed, we had all the information, we had the thinking about what we might do in response." "If that had gone unchecked, he'd have controlled a very significant portion of the world's oil." "Man:" "The security council is ready to proceed to the vote." "Reporter:" "Passed resolutions saying countries could use all necessary means if Iraq didn't get out of Kuwait." "Reporter:" "The war with Iraq has apparently started." "Marlin fitzwater:" "Codename "operation desert storm."" "President bush:" "Five months ago Saddam Hussein started this cruel war against Kuwait." "Tonight, the battle has been joined." "We will not fail." "Chuck horner:" "I had the greatest armada ever assembled in terms of capability." "We had every air field to the limit." "We had a tanker force of hundreds of airplanes in order to feed this 24-hour aerial assault." "In the opening moments of the war, i sat in the command center and i watched." "I could see the air picture, and i felt a sense of dread because i knew people were gonna die, and we were responsible for that." "And even my own people were gonna die." "I had a sense of confidence but uncertainty." "Because war's chaos, and it can change in a heartbeat." "It's important that any commander get inside the head of his enemy leader, and we did that with Saddam Hussein." "It was my job to know his flaws, and be able to use them against him." "Saddam Hussein was a narcisstic megalomaniac, and as a result he surrounded himself with "yes men."" "And it's a weakness." "His military strategy and operational art, things like tactics, we're all driven by keeping people from making decisions." "So where even the ground controller even tells the pilot when to shoot his missile." "And i tucked that away, and we used it to great advantage." "The first bombs that dropped were on the communications centers, on the sector operations centers for the air defense system." "And so the Iraqi pilot would take off into the night, trying to contact his controller." "Nobody there." "And then what does he do?" "He hasn't been trained to fight." "He hasn't been trained to think." "And of course the next thing he does, is he catches a missile." "Man:" "Splash two!" "All sectors, splash two." "Chuck horner:" "We watched television while we were conducting the war, and of course in the basement of the al rasheed hotel, was a major comm node." "And we decided not to take it out, because all the westerners, press that were staying in the rasheed hotel." "Peter arnett:" "The president bush follows through with threats to attempt to prove to Saddam Hussein that he should leave Kuwait." "Chuck horner:" "And i always got a kick out of watching" "Peter arnett bad-mouth the Americans knowing that his life was in my hands." "Yeah, he pissed me off sometimes." "Peter arnett:" "I'd never been in an environment like that." "Flames and noise, and this was picked up by our microphone." "There is a bomb every few minutes, there's lots of anti-aircraft fire going up." "[Gunfire, explosions]." "And then the telecommunications center also erupted." "Exploding, sheets of flame, noise, and the concussive waves of air blowing in y'know through an open window." "Atlanta was saying, "keep going, the whole world is listening, the whole world's listening!"" "We don't know how much of the city of Baghdad has been targeted." "I was willing to take the risks, because i felt getting the truth of what was happening was absolutely important." "Most of the CNN team had left, and i remained." "Reporter:" "CNN's Peter arnett, as we've indicated, one of just a handful of western correspondents remaining in Baghdad." "Chuck horner:" "We were never sure the Iraqi's would not become irritated and arrest him, or shoot him." "Peter arnett:" "Bernie I've been, uh, I've been told to stop this interview." "[Gunfire and explosions]" "Peter arnett:" "The chief minder saadoun janabi, banged on my door late morning and said," ""you've got a big interview coming."" "The security people take me to the entrance to the hotel and there's a large black late-model BMW." "The door is open and I'm pushed inside the back seat, and off we go." "It was becoming dark, but i went down a street with ordinary-looking middle-class homes." "I go inside." "The door opens, and in walks Saddam very quickly." "And he said to me, "why did you stay behind?"" "And i said, "this is what i do for a living, i cover wars."" "He said, "well i hope you get through this one."" "It was the man that most of the world saw as an enemy." "Why of all things was he going to sit and give me an interview?" "What does this guy really feel?" "I asked if he had any doubts about winning the war." "He responded quickly and confidently," ""not even one in a million."" "The Saddam interview was unique in terms of modern world history." "That he was willing to sit down with a journalist from the country attacking him, and talk openly, and what i viewed as candidly, about what was happening in his own country and in his own mind." "Chuck horner:" "Saddam thought he could handle us." "Well, he was wrong." "Desert storm changed warfare." "Suddenly now, we proved what air power could accomplish." "Our air attacks on the Iraqi army and leadership resulted in him willing to withdraw from Kuwait, prior to the ground war starting." "Two days before we stopped fighting, we received information as to the location of Saddam Hussein." "And we could have dropped a bomb on that region, but it was in a residential area and we were liable to kill a lot of civilians." "We had the battle won, and our job was not to impact Iraq, it was to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait." "Hans blix:" "I was in an airplane going back from" "Stockholm to New York." "When we were outside Greenland, the pilot told us that we have to return to Stockholm because something has happened in New York and we cannot land there." "It took us a long time before we knew what had actually happened." "I think it was a feeling that the giant United States had been injured and humiliated by the attack on the world trade center, and they had to hit back." "President bush:" "And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." "Hans blix:" "They hit back and destroyed the Taliban regime, but it wasn't enough." "They had to go on more." "Donald rumsfeld:" "If you're asking," ""are there al-qaeda in Iraq?"" "The answer's yes, there are." "Hans blix:" "I think the U.S." "Looked much at Saddam Hussein, and Saddam being defiant on weapons of mass destruction." "And Saddam has been hiding them, and he has refused to let inspectors to come in and, and see them in the '90s." "Man:" "All i know, is that i wanna go down this road, and I'm being told i can't." "Man:" "We are inspectors, we want out..." "Hans bliz:" "Why had Saddam Hussein refused inspectors to come in?" "Colin Powell:" "We have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons." "Hans blix:" "So we asked ourselves," ""well, there must, must be some reason for it." "They, probably they, they are hiding something."" "Man:" "Please stop, please, please stop." "Hans blix:" "In August 2002, we carried out altogether about 700 inspections in Iraq, in about 500 different sites." "And we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction." "We kept the security council, we kept the member states informed." "It would still take some time to verify sites and items, analyze documents, interview relative persons, and draw conclusions." "It will not take years, nor weeks, but months." "By march 2003, the U.S. leadership, they must've been aware that the evidence seemed not to come along." "And at the same time, the hot season was coming on." "So my guess is that they had a deadline:" "Either we invade by the middle of march or else not at all." "President bush:" "My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision." "Before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed." "Reporter:" "Thousands of American ground forces charged into Iraq, as heavily armed apache attack helicopters give them cover." "[Gunshots, explosions]." "Reporter:" "It just makes Afghanistan seem almost like a tea party, and the amount the firing is just extraordinary." "Zainab salbi:" "I was not supportive of the Gulf war at all, and particularly because i felt strongly that the only way that this overthrow will be sustainable is that if the Iraqis do it themselves." "As long as Americans are gonna do it, or anybody, any foreigner will do it for Iraqis, then there is no ownership by the own population." "Of the change that we need to do for our own selves." "President bush:" "In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." "[Cheering, applause]." "Zainab salbi:" "But the war happened, and i did go right after the war, and i opened women for women international's office in Iraq." "And i was actually training a group of women, Iraqi women, in leadership trainings." "We were in Jordan, and we were having a coffee break, when someone said, "Saddam just got arrested."" "Man:" "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him." "[Cheering]." "Zainab salbi:" "Everyone was laughing, and clapping, and you know joyful and all of that." "And i must admit, i went to the corner of the room, like i just withdrew to the sort of the edge of the room." "I actually had tears in my eyes." "These are real feelings." "A:" "Because i did not want to be like him." "He enjoyed when he killed and tortured." "I did not want to be someone, who would enjoy someone else's humiliation, or someone else's misery." "Even if it was him, i cannot allow myself that joy." "But there is also the part of me that loves him." "That there is a part of me, that he is just," ""uncle Saddam" for me." "And it took me a long time, actually, it was horrifying for me to acknowledge it." "We ate with him, we danced with him, we laughed with him." "And he particularly liked me!" "He let me get away with a lot of things, you know." "I, sometimes i violate the rules and he's like," ""ah, zainab, whatever."" "When i played piano for him, he liked it." "But there is the political part of me, that this was a dictator." "That he violated our country, violated our people, violated my own family." "President bush:" "And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions." "Dr. al-rubaie:" "I went back home to Baghdad in 2003, and then i started a new life." "I was a national security advisor." "We went to see Saddam Hussein in his cell immediately after he was arrested by the Americans." "I sat in front of him, just a yard in between me and him." "I started by saying, "Saddam Hussein."" "He lift his head up, looked at me." "I said, "may god curse you, what have you done to my people?"" "My colleagues left, and i was the last one to stay behind." "It was me and him in that room only." "And i looked at his neck." "I'm a doctor, i only need two and a half minutes to get to his carotid artery." "I have to admit, i was tempted." "Dr. al-rubaie:" "I attended every session of his trial." "It was a psychological healing for me, and for most of the Iraqis." "To see the man who tortured, and persecuted, and killed hundreds of thousands of them, to see him in the box for two years." "Saddam Hussein:" "I'm listening to your decisions." "Judge:" "Yes standing, be standing." "Saddam Hussein:" "No, I'll stay seated." "Judge:" "Stand up, stand him up." "Saddam Hussein:" "I'm going to stay seated." "Dr. al-rubaie:" "He thought that this is all theatrical." "He was obsessed with the legacy he's going to leave behind." "Wolf blitzer:" "Historic day in Iraq, the country's former president Saddam Hussein convicted for crimes against humanity." "Judge:" "The court had decided to sentence defendant" "Saddam Hussein al-majid to be executed with hanging until death." "Saddem Hussein:" "Long live the people!" "Judge:" "For committing crimes against humanity." "Saddem Hussein:" "Long live the nation!" "Down with the traitors!" "Judge:" "In accordance with article 12, the first." "Saddem Hussein:" "Down with the invaders!" "Judge:" "The second, the third, the fourth." "Saddem Hussein:" "God is great, god is great!" "Dr. al-rubaie:" "George w." "Asked the question to prime minister maliki:" ""What are you going to do with this man?"" "Prime minister maliki said, "we're going to execute him,"" "and George w." "Said this..." "That is the most greenish light you can ever have." "We were really happy." "I took the job for carrying out the execution." "I'm against the death penalty in principle." "But there are some exceptions." "He has used chemical weapons against his own people." "I took him to the other room, where the chamber is, and the, and the rope is hanging there." "He looked at the rope, and looked at me." "It went on probably for a very, very, very long minute, looking, and staring at me, i was staring at him as well." "I didn't blink." "The man did not even say, "please god forgive me."" "You know you're going to die!" "And the lever came down, and he, he died instantaneously." "Stephen Frazier:" "Saddam Hussein is dead." "Chuck horner:" "There's no doubt Saddam Hussein loved himself." "He thought there was nobody as smart, or as strong, or as brave." "And of course in the end, he was wrong." "I kinda felt sorry for him." "Still tried to kill him." "Peter arnett:" "You think of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, aggressive brutality, you think of Saddam Hussein." "He won't fade quietly from history." "Hans blix:" "Saddam Hussein was executed, and tyranny was followed by anarchy." "I should think that many Iraqis would hesitate to see that as a benefit." "Zainab salbi:" "The irony of all ironies:" "When he was executed, his narrative changed from the villain to the hero." "When i tell people in the middle east, or any country, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, any country in the middle east, that i knew him?" "They, what they say, "ahh, may god have mercy on his soul."" "And the narrative that this man had terrorized a country, has terrorized a people, have put, destroyed two countries, put us in war with two countries, is gone." "What he is seen right now as the hero who stood against America." "Adel darwish:" "He became the mythological figure he wanted to be." "So he still lives in isil." "Reporter: 129 people are dead." "Reporter:" "Isis carried out the assault." "Adel darwish:" "He still lives in terrorism." "Reporter:" "Suicide attackers at the airport." "Adel darwish:" "He still lives in every idea and organization that wanted to put fear in people's souls and hearts." "Dr. al-rubaie:" "I do not want to forget Saddam Hussein." "I do not want my people to forget Saddam Hussein." "We may forgive, but we should not forget." "The rope is in my reception room, around the neck of the statue of Saddam Hussein." "I see this statue and the rope every day." "I believe it's a good reminder." "For me, and for those who are in charge in the" "Iraqi government, in the parliament." "Anyone who will follow the footstep of Saddam Hussein, his fate will be like Saddam Hussein." "Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, we have a way forward." "Freedom of thought, of speech, of expression, ideology and religion." "Our sense of belonging is to Iraq now." "We have identity, it's called Iraq."