At Funeral for Hussein Sons, a Call for 'Death to America'
By DEXTER FILKINS
AWJA, Iraq, Aug. 2 ? The brothers Hussein were buried today here in their hometown 11 days after they were killed by American soldiers. The funeral touched off an outpouring of nostalgia for their fugitive father and was filled with angry calls to rid Iraq of its American occupiers.
Coming out of seclusion, more than 100 members of Saddam Hussein's family gathered in a parched cemetery here and laid the bodies of Uday and Qusay side by side, and then, to conclude an emotional ceremony, buried a third relative killed in the American raid, Qusay's 14-year-old son, Mustafa. A group of American soldiers kept watch at first, then slipped away.
The mourners, many of whom thrived under Saddam Hussein's brutal but patriarchal rule, asked God to judge Uday and Qusay as heroes killed in a glorious battle against a foreign invader, and draped each grave with an Iraqi flag.
"Oh God, welcome Uday and Qusay as martyrs on the day of judgment," a man intoned as the bodies of each were lowered into the ground. "Give them a soft place to rest in the earth, open the grave wider for them, and let each become your son."
The end of the ceremony, attended by as many as 200 people in all, set off a frenzy. Family and friends seemed to stop mourning the passing of the sons as they began chanting for the return of the father.
"Our blood, our souls, we'll sacrifice for Saddam!" the crowd roared, repeating the line.
When friends and family lined up in a traditional prayer to mark the end of the funeral, one of the members rose from his knees and exploded in anger, jabbing his finger at a small number of Americans standing by.
"Death to America!" he shouted, with murmurs of assent behind him. "Death to America!"
The ceremony ended the unusual transit of Uday and Qusay Hussein since July 22, when they were killed in a shootout with American forces in the northern city of Mosul. The brothers were not only among the most feared and awesome figures in their father's rule, but also the symbols of its future.
For the next 10 days, American commanders debated the fate of the bodies, caught between a desire to prove to skeptical Iraqis that the brothers were indeed dead and their reluctance to remind Iraqis so vividly of Mr. Hussein's government.
The Americans released photos of Uday's and Qusay's mangled, bullet-riddled bodies, but the doubts among Iraqis persisted. When the Americans surgically restored the bodies, and allowed journalists to take photographs of their their pallid and puffed-up faces, the questions persisted.
All the while, the anger among Mr. Hussein's supporters, and even among many other Iraqis, grew. Many accused the Americans of trying to manipulate the bodies for a propaganda victory and of flouting the Muslim injunction that the dead be buried as quickly as possible after death.
The debate ended this morning. Members of Mr. Hussein's clan, Al Tikriti, and his tribe, Bani al-Nasiri, said American officials had notified them at 6 a.m. that they could pick up the bodies at an American base in Tikrit. The Iraqis said the Americans had imposed strict conditions for the release of the bodies, obviously intended to minimize any outpouring of nostalgia for the old government.
The American officials were especially concerned that a funeral not be allowed to stoke enthusiasm for Mr. Hussein's rule in the very area where memories of him remain fondest. But they also hoped that the deaths would quell the guerrilla war being waged against American soldiers here.
The area around Awja is the center of an intense manhunt for Mr. Hussein; many American commanders have concluded that he is probably hiding among the members of his family and clan.
Leaders of Mr. Hussein's tribe had told the Americans that they wanted to stage a three-day funeral procession for the sons in Awja, where Mr. Hussein was born, and Tikrit, where he kept his home.
To stop that, the Iraqis said, the Americans prohibited Mr. Hussein's family from staging a procession in Tikrit. And they said they would allow no more than 50 carloads of people to attend Uday and Qusay's funeral.
The members of Mr. Hussein's family grew even more incensed when they finally took possession of the bodies.
Although refrigerated for the past 10 days, the bodies smelled and the faces were nearly unrecognizable, they said. So decomposed were Uday and Qusay that Mr. Hussein's family decided to forgo the usual Islamic custom of wrapping the bodies in a shroud. They left them in their coffins.
"In Islam, this is not the way you bury a martyr," said Sheik Ali al-Nida, the head of the Bani al-Nasiri tribe. "The Americans have not allowed us to have a proper ceremony."
The transfer seemed timed to keep the crowds at the cemetery to a minimum. With Mr. Hussein's family members eager to put the bodies in the ground, the funeral began and ended just before the beginning of midday prayers in Tikrit. By the time the imams told Tikritis that Uday and Qusay's bodies had finally been received, it was already too late for other people to get to the cemetery.
Yet even if the people of Tikrit had been allowed to attend the funeral, it was not clear how many would have come. Even in Tikrit, and even within Mr. Hussein's inner circle, there were many people who loathed the Hussein brothers, and who had suffered at their hands.
The ceremony itself unfolded in the withering heat of summer. The ground, baked hard by a lack of rain, was broken by a jackhammer, supported by a generator, that clattered and smoked as the tribal leaders, dressed in long white gowns and headdresses, watched.
Early on, a team of American soldiers kept watch, while another guarded the entrance and turned Iraqis away. But as the ceremony began, the Americans departed. More Iraqis arrived, the slogans began and the anger rose.
"Let's go kill some Americans," one Iraqi man said to his friend. "Just like we did before."
Yet at least part of the anger, it seemed, stemmed not only from the deaths of Uday and Qusay but also from the free-fall that Saddam Hussein's relatives have experienced since the American invasion. Little more than three months ago, the members of Mr. Hussein's clan walked proudly and drove expensive cars, often terrifying those around them.
Today, they seemed a diminished lot. Prominent members of Mr. Hussein's family did not attend the funeral. Many of those who did refused to identify themselves, out of fear that they would be interrogated by the Americans. Many came not in Mercedes-Benzes or BMW's, but in old, battered cars with license plates from cities far away.
As the crowd moved to leave, an Iraqi man approached an American reporter and jabbed his finger.
"We will make the Americans leave this country on their knees," he said. "Just you watch."
