Talk:Saddam Hussein

Kerry quote

removed:

• "We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."
  • John Kerry

Unless someone sees this as useful go ahead and add it... ~ RoboAction 01:15, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, I think it does not paint Saddam rosily enough for most of the wikipedians to want to keep this quote. They will try to look up a quote that doesn't mention the heretic word "dictator"- perhaps something more balanced (especially to his victims): "Unanimously Elected President", or "Democratically Challanged Ruler" seems those are the harshest terms they can come up with.

Just look at his main entry in wikipedia, Mahatma Ghandi doesn't get such an endearing intro. "A rising star in the revolutionary Ba'ath Party"... hopefully no one will read to the end where they hint, as unobtrusively as possible, of some of the favourite extracorricular activities of this rising star...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein

if you like to recitify this appalling situation a little bit, you are most cordially invited to replace the scandalous second paragraph in the intro with this one I have prepared: (I got banned for it)

http://www.geocities.com/npov2004/saddamwiki.htm

Negative quotes

Why are these all negative quotes? Saddam was a man of God, at least in his head. One quote that should be found first, then added is roughly, The worst thing is when man forgets the place of God. It was in an interview with some woman. Find it, don't delete this! I will continue to repost it if you do. --69.67.229.171 05:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Last words

I plan to remove attempts to add Saddam Hussein's last words to this article unless and until someone can provide citations from reliable sources for these. As with so many hot topics in the world, I expect there will be far more people willing to put words into his mouth than dig up reliable information. At the moment, I have the following information from a reliable source:

• Then Saddam began reciting the "Shahada", a Muslim prayer that says there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger, according to an unabridged copy of the same tape, apparently shot with a camera phone and posted on a website. Saddam made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse. His last word was Muhammad.
  • "Saddam had feisty exchange at the gallows". USA Today. 2006-12-31. Retrieved on 2006-12-31. 

This would seem to indicate that it will be hard to get his exact "last words", but that they will be part of the Shadada. Of course, this report is third-hand, via an unidentified person and unidentified website, and light on details, so it's not particularly satisfying. I imagine this will be the state of the question until we achieve some distance from the event itself, allowing more reasoned analysis of the available information to provide us with more solid information. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:12, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Bush Quote

"Goodbye Saddam Hussein. The world is better off without you." This is unsourced, and simply doesn't sound like President George W. Bush. I removed it. User:Spock 156.34.27.23 01:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. It is perfectly acceptable to remove unsourced quotes, especially if they seem implausible. You don't need to leave a talk-page message, but it's a good idea to say something in the edit summary (the input box just above the "Save" and "Preview" buttons) when you make the edit. An edit summary like "removed unsourced, implausible Bush quote" can help prevent re-addition, signal an intent to defend such a removal, or at least provide a reason that will allow others to defend it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced

• I wish things were like when Ronald Reagan was still president.
  • Reported in the July 2005 issue of GQ, which quoted Spc. Sean O'Shea, one of Hussein's former guards.

• If Israel attacks any Arab country ... we have the means to burn half of Israel.
  • Speech at an Arab League summit in 1989 (translated from Arabic)

• Kuwait is an Iraqi territory. It was not an invasion.
  • Statement at his trial in 2006.

• Of the lessons also gained from the history of mankind is the fact that greed and arrogance, when combined, lead the oppressor to do injustice not only to others, but to himself as well; once this combination of greed and arrogance has misled him into a sense of undefeatable capability and power, as he takes the road of falsehood and aggression, committing the most heinous acts and proceeding from that sick imagination, to fall down the precipice and then into hell.

• One of the lessons of recent and distant history is that all empires and bearers of the coffin of evil, whenever they mobilized their evil against the Arab nation, or against the Muslim world, they were themselves buried in their own coffin, with their sick dreams and their arrogance and greed, under Arab and Islamic soil; or they returned to die on the land from which they had proceeded to perpetrate aggression. This has been the case with all empires preceding our present time.

• You gotta find a good woman. Not too smart, not too dumb. Not too old, not too young. One that can cook and clean.
  • to a guard of his named Specialist Sean O'Shea after his capture by U.S. forces)

• I will not return! I will not come to an unjust court! Go to hell!
  • To the judge at the end of a court session on December 6, 2005.

• That Mummy.
  • On Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iran-Iraq war.

• You are scared of the interior minister. He doesn't scare my dog.
  • To Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman.

• Keep them separated and interrogate them.
  • After personally interrogating citizens in Dujail, after an assassination attempt.

About Saddam Hussein

• Your Excellency, Mr President: I greet you, in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq.
  • George Galloway

• We are safer, the region is safer, the world is safer without him.
  • Iyad Allawi