Within Hours?

This, from Reuters, seems to be the latest coverage:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein may be hanged within hours, senior Iraqi officials said on Friday, although the start of a week-long Muslim holiday might yet delay it.

This is interesting:

One senior Iraqi government official told Reuters that U.S. troops would hand Saddam over only "when he climbs the gallows".

And Pajamas Media reports (from a live broadcast, no link)

Saddam has been handed over to Iraqi authorities. All of the paperwork is done and the execution could occur “at any time.”

And:

Iraqi government gets permission from Sunni clerics to carry out the execution at the onset of the Eid festival—the celebration of the end of Ramadan. (live broadcast)

So there seems to be some confusion but no impediment and clear intent to get it done. I'll follow it latter. I really have no interest other than it occur.

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Looks like Saddam is going down in a few hours:

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was to be executed before sunrise on Saturday, officials said....
The only formality remaining, he said, was the transfer of Saddam from US military custody to Iraqi authority, but that this had been agreed and would not delay proceedings.
"The meeting with the Americans is over," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "They decided Saddam will be hanged before 6:00 am."

I have an odd sense of this being gutsy. To my mind this just indicates how powerfully fear of Saddam had entered the individual Iraqi personality. It had become part of the way they thought and perceived, a paralyzing incubus on their spirit. His death will finally free them from what in a subterranean way is actually a crippling structure of mind. It will free their spirit. Executing him will not be to execute a man, it will be to exorcise a corruption weighting each individual heart.
(7:44 PM)

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Occurs to me that if there is violence after the execution --I mean killings, not protests--the reprisal should be severe. The positives in this execution I've already stated, but I haven't considered yet the negatives to those Sunnis who yet desire a restoration. These people have their "subterranean psychic structure" as well, and that' structure is an expectation, simply because it's in the natural order of things, that they will again gain power... How? That's not significant, because it's certain, it's in the natural order of things. But Suddam successfully executed means that that natural order is broke. Good. To gain power again they can't just flounder and wait, they have to plan and win. A nice powerful response to any tantrum they might throw might begin the healing process; a number might begin to consider just which side it is that's winning.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three years after he was hauled from a hole in the ground by pursuing U.S. forces, Saddam Hussein was hanged Saturday under a sentence imposed by an Iraqi court, an Iraqi official told NBC News....
Asked if Saddam were dead, the official in the Iraqi prime minister's office said, “Yes, the body of Saddam Hussein is in front of me.”

This from MSNBC, probably as of about 9:30PM CST. (If that's not the right abbreviation I mean Daylight Savings Time)

Still find it a bit remarkable that the Iraqis achieved this. To shoot him in war would be no big thing, but to create a government a judiciary, have the trial, and hang him... Remarkable.

I'll browse a little more and see what's said. There are certainly no confusions in my feelings, nor complexity either. This was a job well done. Since I care that we succeed in Iraq this is a satisfaction, it's a good step forward. --In moral terms it's a satisfaction as well, and in these terms there are no anxieties for the future, it's simply a matter completed, and in that sense the emotion is one of calm, calm and satisfaction... It may be still that my strongest emotion is that of wonderment and admiration for the Iraqis that through three years effort they were able to pull this off: Government, Judiciary, Execution.
(10:16PM)

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Everybody's got to take credit. This from Drudge:

CNN Broke at 10:06...
NBC first broadcast net to report execution of Hussein at 10:14 pm, ET --
CBS went up at 10:18 --
ABC up at 10:25...

I didn't hear about it until 9:43 Central Time.

Iraqi TV said the execution took place just before 0600 local time (0300GMT).

So they got it done just exactly when they said they would, just before 9:00, our zone. The trains run on time.
(10:46PM)