posted January 02, 2007 10:34 PM              

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Talk About It: Post | More Coverage: Taunts at Hanging

Master Sgt. Robert Ellis cared for the former Iraqi dictator from January 2004 until August 2005 at Camp Cropper, the compound near Baghdad where Saddam and other "high value detainees" were held.

Ellis, 56, an operating room nurse in the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, said he was ordered to do whatever was needed to keep Saddam alive.

"That was my job: to keep him alive and healthy, so they could kill him at a later date," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story published Sunday. Saddam was executed Saturday.

Ellis checked on Saddam twice a day and wrote a daily report on Saddam's physical and emotional condition.

Saddam told Ellis that cigars and coffee kept his blood pressure down, and it seemed to work. Saddam would insist that Ellis smoke with him.

Ellis said Saddam did not complain much, and, when he did, his complaint was usually legitimate. "He had very good coping skills," Ellis said.

Saddam shared with Ellis memories of happier times when his children were young. The former dictator described telling the youngsters bedtime stories and giving his daughter half a Tums tablet when she had a stomachache.

When he was allowed short visits outside, Saddam would feed the birds crusts of bread saved from his meals. He also watered a dusty plot of weeds.

"He said he was a farmer when he was young and he never forgot where he came from," Ellis said.

When Ellis told Saddam he had to leave for America because his brother was dying, Saddam hugged him and said he would be Ellis' brother.

"I was there to help him, and he respected that," Ellis said.

Saddam never discussed dying and expressed no regrets about his rule.

"He said everything he did was for Iraq ," Ellis said. "One day when I went to see him, he asked why we invaded. Well, he made gestures like shooting a machine gun and asked why soldiers came and shot up the place. He said the laws in Iraq were fair and the weapons inspectors didn't find anything.

"I said, 'That's politics. We soldiers don't get caught up in that sort of thing.'"

posted January 03, 2007 12:44 AM              

He was supposedly under Iraqi custody according to Mr. Bush nazi Jr.

Most people don't even realize that it's in the news because they just don't grasp it. I heard when he said it.

Thank goodness for my Gemini sun and Mercury.

posted January 03, 2007 12:47 AM              

Not many people get to hang out with a dictator you know? It's an interesting read.

Not everyone is gonna cheer his death on like you.

Sh*t.

posted January 03, 2007 01:12 AM            

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Born, it's the American soldier telling the story. About how he saw a softer side of Saddam. You make it seem like a conspiracy. The soldier's name is in the article.

Not many people get to hang out with a dictator you know? It's an interesting read.

Not everyone is gonna cheer his death on like you.

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So what its an American soldier telling the story? Does that mean they cant make stuff up? And i didnt say its a conspiracy i said its an exagerations, im entitled to my opinion and i stick with it. Gemini sun/mercury arent cures for stupidity especially since everyone here knows how i felt about his death. Your right its an interesting read, nothing more.

posted January 03, 2007 01:15 AM            

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And Dulce i agree with you if his step father wasnt a Nazi (literally a supporter of the Nationalist Socialist Party of Germany - im not throwing around random labels...) maybe it would be different. Rather sad.

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posted January 03, 2007 01:17 AM            

Of course, Saddam was just a grandfatherly man who JUST happened to have given orders to murder, rape, torture and terrorize millions of his own citizens...not to mention ordering a war which killed about a million Iranians and another million or so Iraqi troops.

Now, let's contrast what this leftist hack writer says about Saddam and what other leftist hack writers have said about Chile's Augusto Pinochet who in his course of office may have...and I stress MAY have ordered the execution of 3000 through the years. And who were those 3000? And why would leftist writers hysterically screech, scream, shriek and wet themselves?

Those 3000 were communists attempting to overthrow the government of Chile and bring a communist dictatorship government to power and they were aided, directed, funded and controlled by the Soviet Union.

So, Pinochet was a heartless murdering bast@rd and Saddam was a grandfatherly kind of guy. That's the leftists story and they're going to try to make their twisted distortions of reality....truth.

They've questioned Saddam's trial and conviction, questioned both the timing and method of his execution, questioned why he was executed during EID...except that to Shia, EID didn't start in Iraq until Sunday, they've questioned why Saddam wasn't turned over to the International Criminal Court for prosecution...even though Iraq is not a signatory to that treaty and even though the UN has had not one thing to do with the war and failed to restrain Saddam all through his bloody reign of terror. Not only that but the UN owes Iraq billions of dollars in stolen oil for food money and participated in Saddam's ripoff of the money allocated to feed, cloth and provide medical care for Iraqis.

posted January 03, 2007 01:44 AM            

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they've questioned why Saddam wasn't turned over to the International Criminal Court for prosecution...even though Iraq is not a signatory to that treaty

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Thats a VERY VERY VERY important piece of information...plus to the people who are ****** off that the U.S. let Saddam get executed by Iraqis, i wonder though what you guys would have said about U.S. hiding and providing health care to the Shah of Iran when Khomeini wanted him extradicted and executed in a like manner...betcha those same people blamed the U.S. for being involved in Iran's affair, how dare they hide a horrid creature like the Shah and yet allow Iraq to execute the ever loving Saddam...I dont have a problem with anyone's opinion, its just the inconsistancies and constant avoidance of facts that gets me...

posted January 03, 2007 01:45 AM              

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Not everyone is gonna cheer his death on like you.

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You can add Jwhop to the list also.

It also shows what type of family he was raised with.

Jwhop seems like the type to go out and hunt on a daily basis. Needing to kill something.

Kind of like Cheney.

His parents taught him that murder of any kind is right.

posted January 03, 2007 01:52 AM            

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Jwhop seems like the type to go out and hunt on a daily basis. Needing to kill something.

Kind of like Cheney.

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Hope you arent his lawyer then

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Jwhop, you also left out how our country supplied Saddam with weapons to fight Iran

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Our country also supplied Germany in WW1, which didnt stop Germany from attacking our ships and ticking the U.S. off...we all know what happened to Germany after