RELATIVELY SPEAKING, Saddam got off easy. The execution of the former Iraqi dictator was carried out with little fanfare. He was defiant to the end, saying, “Iraq without me is nothing,” though he did look frightened. He refused a hood, which was then wrapped around his neck like a scarf. There were taunts and jeers from the small crowd (mostly in support of Moktada al-Sadr). And while Saddam was in mid-sentence, probably answering back to his executors, the trapdoor opened beneath him. He went down with a loud bang. Death seems to have come swiftly for Hussein, whose neck was probably snapped in an instant (as proper hangings are meant to do). Not long after, the corpse of the dictator was sent back to his family for a proper burial in Tikrit, alongside his sons, Uday and Qusay.

In an essay for Policy Review published a year ago, I speculated on how Saddam’s inevitable demise would compare with the executions of other dictators and their ilk throughout history. Most notable were the hangings of Nazi war criminals in October 1946 following the Nuremberg trials, carefully documented by Whitney R. Harris in Tyranny on Trial: