Saddam boosted fitness training for hanging: Lawyer

Amman, Jan 10: Less than 48 hours before he was hanged, SaddamHussein said he had doubled the workout on his treadmill to be in goodshape when he faced the gallows, according to his Iraqi lawyer.

Wadood Fawzi Shams Deen, who met the ousted leader at a USmilitary camp in one of his former palaces on December 28, says Saddamtold him and another lawyer that he had done 35 minutes of exercise inthe previous two days.

''I am making extra effort to prove to them that an Arab dies withhonour and dignity defending honourable principles,'' Shams Deen quotedSaddam as saying.

Saddam's hanging, secretly recorded in footage distributed on theInternet, has turned him into a martyr in parts of the Arab world,overshadowing memories of his often brutal and bloody rule and of hisconviction for crimes against humanity.

Pictures of his composed conduct and erect bearing in the face oftaunting at a shambolic execution has helped the supporters who havealready begun burnishing his image as a hero -- even as the court stilltrying Saddam's associates shows pictures of thousands of Iraqi Kurdskilled in chemical attacks.

The value of posterity was not lost on Saddam. ''The executionwill turn Saddam Hussein into a symbol for another hundred years,'' hesaid, according to the lawyers, who took extensive notes of their lastconversation with him.

Saddam, smoking a Cuban Cohiba cigar and wearing the same blackovercoat he wore when he was hanged on December 30, told the lawyers hehad turned down an offer of tranquilisers from a US doctor when theappeals court upheld his death sentence.

''I told him that God has given me enough faith to do withoutthem,'' Shams Deen said Saddam told him and Bander Awad al-Bander, thelawyer son of one of Saddam's co-defendants.

''I will face my creator with a brave heart and clean hands.''Offering cigars to his visitors and a nearby US guard, Saddam said hehad been crossing the Tigris River in broad daylight, swimming part ofthe way and using a small fisherman's boat for the rest, only daysbefore his arrest in a tiny farmhouse cellar near his hometown, Tikrit,in December 2003.

Poems

Saddam recited poems about chivalry, endurance, heroism andholy war (jihad), saying poetry had helped him deal with his years inU.S. captivity, much of it in solitary confinement, Shams Deen said.

''We have humbled the long nights and it has not broken ourwill,'' he quoted Saddam as saying. ''Poetry was my window to theworld.'' Saddam said he had read the Koran, the Muslim holy book, eighttimes over during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Other titles he requested and got were poetry by the eminent Arabpoet Al-Mutanabi and a copy of the UN human rights declaration.

Saddam said he had predicted to a senior American interrogator aweek after his arrest in December 2003 that Iraq would be a magnet forall the groups that ''hated America'': ''They will fight America inIraq, all in their own way and with their own agenda. It is better thatyou leave sooner rather than later.'' Iraq would be a ''bigger quagmirethan Vietnam for the United States'', Shams Deen quoted Saddam assaying, and by early 2007 US troops would have been ''driven out ofIraq in humiliation''.

''They have reached a point of powerlessness,'' Saddam said,adding that the insurgency had gained strength throughout his detention.

''Maybe in the first three months they were in need of Saddam.

But the resistance now doesn't need Saddam Hussein ... and will,God willing, defeat the occupiers of great Iraq,'' he said, accordingto the lawyers.

As he said farewell to his visitors, Saddam said he would leavehis people ''content that the moment of America's end in Iraq is fastapproaching''.

Reuters >