INTRODUCTION: AN EXECUTION WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

In the early morning hours of December 30, 2006, Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging in the depths of an Iraqi military bunker. Unbeknown to the officials orchestrating the execution, witnesses smuggled video and camera phones into the makeshift death chamber. Within several hours of Hussein's last breath, images of his execution flooded popular media channels; the resulting photographs and videos ranged in scope from documenting the precise moment at which the noose was placed around Hussein's neck (see Figure 5.1) to a full digital account of his execution. Reactions to his execution were swift and unequivocal. American President George W. Bush hailed the news of Hussein's death as an “important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself.” Across the Atlantic, European officials on both a supranational and local level roundly condemned the execution. European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel declared: “One cannot fight barbarism with means that are equally barbaric. The death penalty is not compatible with democracy.” Even British officials, representing an administration that had been a staunch ally of the United States during the invasion and subsequent liberation of Iraq, criticized the use of capital punishment. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, in a statement released by Downing Street, stressed that her government “did not support the use of the death penalty in Iraq or anywhere else.”