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<< Previous   of   Next >> Jason Fritz / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Jassim Al Buhaleg covers his face Friday while watching news of Saddam Hussein's execution from his mother's home in Everett.   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Saturday, December 30, 2006 Some weep as they remember loved ones slain under Hussein's regime By Krista J. Kapralos and Scott Pesznecker / Herald Writers EVERETT - Jassim Al Buhaleg shouted with joy, then wept, when word arrived by satellite television from Iraq that a hated dictator was dead. The Iraqi refugee living in Everett spent Friday evening watching coverage of the execution of Saddam Hussein, broadcast on Arabic-language television. Al Buhaleg, 26, clapped his hands and said, "I want to go through the ceiling" when the television reported Hussein had been hanged. Minutes later, though, his hands moved to cover his face. He wept. Al Buhaleg said he was thinking about his father, who 20 years ago was dragged from their home in Iraq by Hussein's soldiers. He was never heard from again. Al Buhaleg was among nearly a dozen Iraqi family members who gathered to await word of the execution. Earlier Friday, Amir al Rikabi, 11, leaned against the wall in his family's living room in north Everett. His eyes slid toward a television screen, where a sobbing Iraqi woman pointed to dozens of photographs. They were all her family members, she said, and they all died under Hussein's regime. Suddenly, Amir's father, Adil al Rikabi, turned toward his son. "Do you like Saddam Hussein?" Adil al Rikabi asked. "No," Amir said quietly. "Why?" "Because he killed our family and our cousins." "And?" "Because he messed up the whole of Iraq." "And?" "Because he made the ground all dirty." "And?" "Because I hear from my family that Saddam is bad and that's why I hate him," Amir said. "He cuts people's tongues out." The answer satisfied Adil al Rikabi. He expected to rejoice this weekend at the news that the man who drove hundreds of Iraqis to become refugees in Everett was dead. Hussein was convicted in November in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a Shiite town. Confusion reigned Thursday and into Friday as Iraqi refugees tried to determine when Hussein would die. Some said the Iraqi government would wait until after today's Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday that marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Others insisted that Hussein was already dead, but that it wouldn't be announced until morning in Iraq. Either way, large cuts of lamb were waiting for a celebration planned for this morning. To express their joy at Hussein's death, Everett Iraqis said they would barbecue shish kebabs in the back parking lot at the Colby Halal Market on Broadway. "We'll dance in the street," said Lafta al Ali, owner of the store. "We've waited for this for a long time." Hussein's death will send a message to Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, said Rabab al Ali, Lafta al Ali's 19-year-old daughter. "They will end up like Saddam," she said. But Al Buhaleg said he knew the execution would not set all things right. "Killing Saddam is not going to bring back what he took from us," he said. "Killing him makes me happy, but it is not going to bring anyone back." With Hussein dead, there is a greater chance for peace in Iraq, said Hussein al Rubaye, an Iraqi refugee who became a U.S. citizen in 1999. Al Rubaye worked under a contractor as a military interpreter in Iraq in 2005. "When Saddam was in power, there were more killings than there are now," he said. "But under Saddam, no one talked about it. It was all done in secret." Iraqis, even violent insurgents, are still learning how to express their own freedom after decades of life under a dictator, when "you could be executed just for saying that a tomato is too expensive," al Rubaye said. "Overnight, they had everything," he said. "Suddenly they were able to express themselves."

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