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Thousands flock to see Saddam's grave


Iraqis grieve beside the grave of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Ouja, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Dec. 31, 2006. Saddam was buried shortly before dawn Sunday inside a compound for religious ceremonies in the center of Ouja, the town of his birth. (AP Photo/Bassim Daham)


By several accounts, Saddam was calm but scornful of his captors, engaging in a give-and-take with the crowd gathered to watch him die and insisting he was Iraq's savior, not its tyrant and scourge.

"He said we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians," Munir Haddad, an appeals court judge who witnessed the hanging, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Another witness, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told The New York Times that one of the guards shouted at Saddam: "You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution."

"I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persian and Americans," Saddam responded, al-Rubaie told the Times.

"God damn you," the guard said.

"God damn you," responded Saddam. ...............................................

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