Goodbye, Saddam

Saddam given death sentence
VERDICT DEEPENS SECTARIAN DIVISIONS

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's trial, once viewed as a means of reconciliation and justice, instead Sunday seemed to fuel the country's sectarian division after the former Iraqi leader was found guilty and sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.

Some Shiites and Kurds celebrated. Some Sunnis mourned angrily. For large swaths of the Iraqi people, Saddam has ceased to be the mesmerizing patriarch who once towered over their nightmares and lives. Many interviewed Sunday and in recent months said they had laid him to rest long ago, more worried about the internecine violence wracking the country.

``The verdict was right, but prolonging it faded the cheerfulness,'' said Sameer Asadi, a 38-year-old taxi driver in the southern Iraq city of Basra.

MORE...