Saddam's house to be dismantled

BAGHDAD: Four years after Saddam Hussein's ouster, Iraq's new judiciary is dismantling piece by piece the remnants of the dictator's ruthless regime built up over a quarter of a century.

The executed president's inner circle of family members and many of his cronies -- mostly Sunni Arabs from the Tikrit region of northern Iraq -- have been hunted down and are being sent to the gallows one by one.

Former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, like Saddam convicted for crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 Shiites in the 1980s, was hanged last month on the anniversary of the start of the 2003 invasion.

Even ordinary Iraqis who despised Saddam were surprised by the sudden December 30 hanging of the man who ruled Iraq with an iron fist -- although thousands took to the streets to noisily celebrate his downfall.

Footage of Saddam being taunted then executed was circulated on the Internet, to the delight of many Shiite Iraqis who suffered under his regime, but was widely seen internationally as a public relations blunder.

The masked executioners and their sectarian chants were seen as undermining the legitimacy of the process -- but this did not unnerve the Iraqi government.

Calling Saddam's execution a "gift to Iraq," Bassem Ridha, advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said Iraq was determined to hunt other followers of Saddam.   
"Definitely this was historic for us. Nobody believed Saddam would be executed. Now that it is done, it has given us a boost, courage despite the mistakes we made," he said. 

Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, a half-brother and former chief of the dreaded Mukhabarat intelligence service, followed Saddam to the gallows on January 15. His head was ripped from his body by the rope.

Uday and Qusay, Saddam's two sons who were pillars of the regime, were killed in a fierce gunbattle with US troops backed by air power in the northern city of Mosul in July 2003.

All four have been buried in their home village of Awjah near Tikrit, along with Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, the executed chief judge of Saddam's disbanded Revolutionary Court. 

Days ahead of the anniversary of the fall of Saddam's regime on April 9, 2003, prosecutors on Monday demanded death in the Kurdish genocide trial of Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali."

Saddam cousin Majid served as his enforcer against Iraq's now dominant Shiites and Kurds and acquired his nickname after allegedly using chemical gas bombs against the Kurdish people during the 1988 military campaign.

A defiant Majid has been appearing in court with a copy of the Koran holy book, which Saddam had also carried almost up to the gallows, and sits in the same front row seat that had been used by Iraq's fallen leader.

Among those closest to Saddam's seat of power only Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, who has a 10-million-dollar bounty on his head, has escaped capture, amid frequent unconfirmed reports of his death.

He was Saddam's number two in the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council, having stood by his side ever since the 1968 coup that brought their Baath party to power.

It was in 1979 that Saddam, who would have turned 70 on April 28, took over as president.

Former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, who represented the acceptable face of Saddam's Iraq on the international scene, appeared in court earlier this month to heap praise on the executed dictator.

"I had the honour to work with the former regime and with the hero Saddam Hussein," Aziz said from the witness stand in the Anfal genocide trial. "He is the hero behind the unity of Iraq and its sovereignty."

Aziz, who since surrendering to US troops in April 2003 has been held near Baghdad international airport without being formally charged, denied there had been any mass killings under Saddam.

Saddam's wife Sajida Khairallah Tulfah Hussein, and his eldest daughter Raghad, are among the women and children in the former ruler's family who fled abroad before the US occupation, and remain on a US wanted list.

And Iraq's Shiite-led government is determined to continue chasing Saddam's remaining aides.