Saddam posts letter ahead of planned execution

updated 2:42 p.m. ET Dec. 27, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein called on Iraqis not to hate the U.S.-led forces that invaded Iraq in 2003 in a farewell letter posted on a Web site Wednesday, a day after an appeals court upheld the former dictator’s death sentence and ordered him to be hanged within one month.

One of Saddam’s attorneys, Issam Ghazzawi, confirmed to The Associated Press in Jordan that the letter was authentic, saying it was written by Saddam on Nov. 5 — the day he was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal for ordering the killings of scores of Shiite Muslims in the city of Dujail in 1982.

“I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking,” the letter said.

Ghazzawi said the letter was released on Tuesday and published on Saddam’s former Baath Party’s Web site on Wednesday.

The deposed leader said he was writing the letter because his lawyers had told him the Iraqi High Tribunal which tried his case would give him an opportunity to say a final word.

“But that court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence — dictated by the invaders — without presenting the evidence,” Saddam wrote.

“Dear faithful people,” Saddam added, “I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any honest believer.”

Last hope for avoiding execution gone?
The letter was released as Saddam’s last legal means of avoiding execution came under question. A spokesman for President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday the appeals court order upholding the death sentence might not require Talabani’s approval to carry out the execution.

Iraqi officials had said such a decision must be ratified by Talabani and Iraq’s two vice presidents. But presidential spokesman Hiwa Osman said that was not necessarily the case.

“Some people believe there is no need for his approval,” Osman said. “We still have to hear from the court as to how the procedure can be carried out.”

Meanwhile, some Saddam loyalists threatened to retaliate if the ousted Iraqi leader is executed, warning in a posting on the same Baath Party Web site that carried Saddam’s letter they would target U.S. interests anywhere.

“The Baath and the resistance are determined to retaliate, with all means and everywhere, to harm America and its interests if it commits this crime,” the statement said, referring to Baath fighters as “the resistance.”

The Baath Party was disbanded after U.S.-led forces overthrew Saddam in 2003. The Web site is believed to be run from Yemen, where a number of exiled members of the party are based.

In its ruling Tuesday, the appeals court said Saddam must be hanged within 30 days for his role in the Dujail killings. The appeals court also affirmed death sentences for two of Saddam’s co-defendants, including his half brother. It ruled that life imprisonment for a third was too lenient and demanded he too be sentenced to death.

Some Iraqis said Saddam should be hanged immediately, but others feared Iraq’s bloodletting could escalate if the former dictator is executed at a time when sectarian attacks are already on the rise.

“Executing him now is dangerous. The situation is very bad. Things need to be calmer,” said Saadia Mohamed Majed, a 60-year-old Shiite in Baghdad who wants the penalty to be postponed for at least three years. Shiites endured persecution under Saddam and his fellow Sunni Arab leaders, and many are eager to remove a symbol of the old regime.

FREE VIDEO Toll tops 9/11 Dec. 27: The death toll of U.S. soldiers in Iraq has now topped the number of Americans killed on 9/11. WNBC's Michael Gargiulo reports. NBC News Channel

The court’s decision came on a particularly bloody day in Baghdad, when at least 54 Iraqis died in bombings and police discovered 49 apparent victims of sectarian reprisal killings.

Many Baghdad neighborhoods were jittery on Wednesday amid fears that Sunni Arab insurgents would target Shiite areas in revenge attacks. There was a heavy police presence in the downtown area of Karrada, and parents picked up their children from a school after reports of a car bomb in the area.

Violence appeared to be relatively minimal, though, with one car bomb explosion killing eight civilians and wounding 10 near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the capital, police said.

The U.S. military reported three new troop deaths on Wednesday, bringing the U.S. death toll for December to 93 in one of the bloodiest months for the American troops in Iraq this year. Some 105 troops were killed in October, according to an Associated Press count.

“This has been a difficult month for coalition forces,” military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Wednesday. “And the month is not over yet.”

Two Latvian soldiers were also killed and three were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded under their Humvee, the Latvian Defense Ministry said. It was unclear where the incident took place, but Latvia has about 130 troops serving in Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad.

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