He may have been capable of monstrous acts, but he could also resemble an eminently normal person, albeit one who was as likely to give a favored official a new Mercedes as send him off to prison. Saddam’s literary side is often overlooked-an understandable omission when discussing someone responsible for horrific massacres-but it speaks to his divided character. Several of them even cleaned up a derelict room in the palace and turned it into an office for Saddam, who spent hours reading, conducting correspondence, and writing in his diaries. They joked and swapped stories, and the guards eventually became taken with the old man, who seemed to adapt well to his reduced conditions. He asked them about their families and girlfriends and wrote poems for them. Recognizing that his true enemy was George W. Furthermore, Saddam had survived for more than 30 years as Iraq’s president through intimidation, cunning, and occasional bursts of charm, and so he made for an unusual prisoner. They were forbidden from talking about their work and spent most of their time either in the former palace where Saddam’s jail cell was constructed or the heavily guarded courthouse that hosted his trial. The American soldiers who guarded him were practically sequestered. That a retinue of guards could grieve for their prisoner reflects the strange alchemy that can develop in such a peculiarly intimate situation. Later, the picture settles on his face, his body cloaked in shadow. The camera goes suddenly askew and the sound is washed out with celebratory shouts. It’s here, at the moment of his death, that the videos usually lose him. He begins to recite the Shahada, the Islamic profession of faith, when a door opens beneath him, and he falls, snapping his neck. Saddam yells at the crowd, “Do you consider this bravery?” Someone tells him to go to hell. A noose is thrown around the scarf and cinched tight. Using a surprising degree of care, a man places a black scarf around his neck. He’s surrounded by men in masks, some of whom heckle him with Shiite slogans. Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti-who rose from provincial obscurity to dominate his country and wage war across the Middle East, becoming the scourge of three American presidents, ally to another, and, finally, the most prominent casualty of the war on terror-ascends the gallows.
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