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Saddam’s Secret Weapon - The American Conservative

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The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq, Steve Coll, Penguin Press, 576 pages Saddam Hussein was the first person I saw die on television. It was December 30, 2006. CNN pointedly chose not to show the actual moment of execution, but some other station must have because I remember with great clarity the grainy video of the hanging, filmed surreptitiously on an Iraqi cell phone. I was in fourth grade, and what impressed me most was not the rope nor the scaffold nor the loud crack when the dictator’s neck broke, but Saddam’s face in the moments beforehand. It bore more than a look of defiance. I would call it melancholy, with a touch of the smug. It was as if Saddam believed that through this inglorious death he would become, permanently, the martyr in whose image he had always drawn himself. Saddam was forever prophesying about his place in history, and those last few minutes with his executioners were no exception. On the way to the scaf

Saddam’s Secret Weapon - The American Conservative Books Saddam’s Secret Weapon Saddam Hussein was a cruel, evil man, but that is hardly how he is remembered. Nic Rowan Mar 23, 2024 12:05 AM The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq , Steve Coll, Penguin Press, 576 pages Saddam Hussein was the first person I saw die on television. It was December 30, 2006. CNN pointedly chose not to show the actual moment of execution, but some other station must have because I remember with great clarity the grainy video of the hanging, filmed surreptitiously on

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