BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The guards at the Baghdad detention facility called their prisoner "Vic," and let him plant a little garden near his cell.
The rest of the world knew him as Saddam Hussein, a man blamed for the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis during more than 20 years as the country's president.
The nickname and the garden are among the details about the former Iraqi dictator that emerged during a tour of the Baghdad cell where Hussein slept, bathed, and kept a journal in the final days before he was executed in December 2006.
U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Doug Stone, who oversees detention operations for the U.S. military in Iraq, shared excerpts from the journal and showed CNN the cell -- the first time it's been recorded on video.
Hussein was hanged on December 30, 2006, for his role in the killings of 148 people in a town north of Baghdad after a 1982 attempt to assassinate him
Stone described how Hussein began that day.
"So he got up. He was informed that, in fact, [this] would be the day that he would be going to the execution. He bathed himself here in a very modest manner," Stone said, pointing to the sink in the corner of the room. "It was winter, so it was cold."
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Hussein took extra time to put on the familiar dark suit he always wore to court, Stone recalled.
"As he went out, he said goodbye to the guards and then got into the vehicles and proceeded to the execution," the general said
Notes taken by the guards assigned to Hussein said he asked them to give his belongings to his lawyer and tell his daughter he was going to meet God with a clear conscience, as a soldier sacrificing himself for Iraq and his people.
The cell is a small, windowless room painted a nondescript beige, with a gun-metal gray floor and concrete sleeping platform. It has a stainless-steel combination sink and toilet in the corner.
Those guarding the former Iraqi leader developed a sort of rapport with him, giving Hussein the nickname Vic -- derived from the initials V-I-C posted near his name in the holding facility.
"Why did you all call him Vic?" asked CNN's Kyra Phillips.
"Ah, a little-known secret," Stone said. "When he came here there was a debate. Do you call him Mr. President? No, that doesn't sound very good. What do you call him?"
Hussein also had a prisoner number, but that wasn't going to work as a name either.
"One day he looked across at us and said why do you have initials by my name?" Stone said. "And we said, well, that stands for 'Very Important Criminal'" ... and he said, 'OK, that's what I want to be called.'"
Guards allowed Hussein to exercise and keep a garden in a small outdoor courtyard.
"This was probably his favorite area," Stone said of the courtyard, where Hussein also smoked cigars and wrote in his journal, trying to shape his legacy even though he had lost control of the country.
In his writings, Hussein said it was his responsibility to document history so that "the people ... may know the facts as they are and not as those who want to counterfeit it."
"So he is afraid that history will not be recorded as he wants it recorded?" Phillips asked.
"As he wants it recorded, exactly!" Stone said.
The former Iraqi leader showed a philosophical side in his poetry.
"The nights are darker after the sunset, but the smoke and the burning overwhelms the city," Hussein wrote as bombings and fighting enveloped Baghdad and echoed into the prison.
"You will feel suffocated under its skies. The days are now nights. No stars. No moon, but lots of screams."
In another piece, Hussein called on citizens to change.
"Dear nation: Get rid of the hatred, take the clothes of hate and throw it into the ocean of hatred," he wrote. "God will save you and you will start a clean life, with a clean heart."
Though authorities executed Hussein for his role in killing about 150 people, he was on trial at the time of his death for genocide. Those charges implicated him in the killings of up to 100,000 Kurds during the 1988 Anfal campaign against Kurdish rebels -- a campaign that included the use of poison gas against Kurdish towns in northern Iraq.
Stone said Hussein's poetry may have been another attempt to ensure his legacy.
"There is a certain cunningness to him," Stone said. "There's a desire to sort of piece things together so that this is what you'll remember."

By Mike CelizicTODAYShow.com contributorZack Dunlap doesn’t remember much from the day he died, but he does remember hearing a doctor declare him brain-dead. And he remembers being incredibly ticked off. “I’m glad I couldn’t get up and do what I wanted to do,” the strapping Oklahoman said in a soft drawl in an exclusive appearance on Monday on TODAY in New York. And what would he have done, asked TODAY’s Natalie Morales, who has followed Dunlap’s miraculous recovery from a Nov. 17 ATV accident that left him with a catastrophic head injury.

The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has said the group will avenge the death of one of its top military commanders last month.
He was speaking at a rally in Beirut to mark the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imad Mughniyeh.
Mughniyeh was killed by a car bomb in Damascus on 12 February.
Israel has denied accusations that it was involved in the murder, but it has issued warnings to its citizens around the world to be on alert.
Acclaimed in death
Thousands of Hezbollah's supporters attended the rally at a community centre in southern Beirut, with huge pictures of Mughniyeh adorning the walls.
Since his death, Mughniyeh has been acclaimed by Hezbollah as one of the group's most important commanders.
Appearing by video link, Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah would avenge his death, choosing "the time, place and manner of punishment".
"The Israelis are worried, as they should be, because our blood will not be spilled in vain," he told supporters.
However, he said another war with Israel, like the one in 2006, was unlikely.
"The decision to go to war is not one the Israeli leadership can make lightly because in Lebanon there is the power of the resistance, the will of the resistance and the culture of the resistance," he said.
The BBC's Mike Sergeant in Beirut says Israel has been bracing itself against possible retaliation, which he says could be more likely now that the traditional mourning period is over.

Now there’s no excuse not to work out your legs more often: these exercises are designed to be performed wherever you are.
At home
1. Calf raise and bounceStand up straight, holding on to a door handle or chair. Pull yourself up on to your tiptoes then lower yourself all the way down until you’re sitting on your heels. Then, when you have reached the ground, bounce on your heels four times. Slowly pull back up to a standing position. Repeat four times. Concentrate on using your legs to do the pushing: don’t be tempted to let the door handle take the strain.
2. Single leg raisesStill holding on to the handle, take the leg furthest from the handle and lift it out to the side, pausing in three places on the way up, about 15 cm (6 inches) apart each time, and then again on the way down. As you lift your leg, remember that the third stage is supposed to be the hardest. Swap sides. Repeat each side four times. Keep an eye on your posture throughout: don’t lean forward as you lift your leg and put it back down.
Outdoors

3. High skips
This is another good exercise to do when you’re out performing your walking exercises. Try skipping for a while instead of walking – it will increase your heart rate and will also give your legs a more strenuous workout. The higher you bring your knees, the more work they will be doing. Even though you will be raising your legs quite high, try to keep the skips fairly close together so that you can fit in the maximum number.

4. Bunny hops

You will need about 20-30 m (65-100 feet) of unobstructed grass in order to do this properly. Start on all fours, then jump your feet in so that they’re next to your hands, then spring your hands forward another length, bring your feet up to join them and so on. Aim to do around twenty bunny hops. This exercise will also give your arms a bit of a workout, but it shouldn’t be attempted if you have weak wrists: if in doubt, jump on the spot or skip instead.
In the gym

5. Leg curl
This exercise works the hamstrings (the muscles situated at the backs of the thighs). Your legs should be fully extended, ankles on top of a cushioned pad and your back at right angles to your legs. Slowly bend your legs so that you’re in a normal sitting position, pause, then return your legs to their outstretched staring position. Remember to exhale as you lift the weights and inhale as you lower them. The whole exercise should take around four to six seconds.

6. Leg extension

This works the quadriceps (at the fronts of the thighs). With your ankles secured behind the cushioned pad and toes pointing straight ahead, slowly extend your legs until they are stretching straight out in front of you, hold and then lower them back down. To get maximum benefit, go slowly and exhale as you’re lifting your legs up. Do as many reps as you can manage. After two or three sessions, see whether you can slightly increase the ‘hold’ when your legs are stretched out.
At work – under the des

7. Leg lifts
Extend one leg so that it is parallel with the other knee. Flex the raised foot, then bounce the raised leg up and down. The smaller the movement, the more effective it will be. Aim for about twenty small bounces, then slowly squeeze the leg back to its original position and swap legs. To target the inner and outer thigh muscles, repeat the exercise but move your leg out to the side and back instead of up and down. For the inner thigh muscles specifically, turn your foot out to the side when you flex it; your ankle should be pointing towards the ceiling.

8. Lower leg stretches

Lift up your leg so that again it stretches straight out in front of you. Imagine you are pulling your foot back in towards your body, so that your heel is the most protruding part and your toes are almost pointing backwards towards your body. This should enable you to feel a strong stretch in your calf; make sure that this is a comfortable stretch for you. Now, keeping that stretch, point your toes forward and count to ten.


Repeat twice on each leg.
Stretches – anywhere

9. Yoga downward facing dog

Position yourself on all fours, your palms flat to the floor, slightly further apart than your shoulders, fingers spread wide. Your feet are on tiptoes. Your spine is arched and your head hangs towards the floor. Feel your spine lengthen and stretch out because of the weight of your head. Now, slowly lower your heels to the floor and feel the stretch all the way down your leg. Taking each foot in turn, lift the heels off the floor and then as it hits the ground again, lift the other foot off simultaneously. Stay like this, or with the heels flat to the floor, for a minute or so, or as long as is comfortable.

10. Yoga dancer’s pose
Standing straight, focus on a spot on the wall to help you balance. Lift your right arm, fingers pointing forward, until it is just above shoulder height, and lift your left leg out behind you, as far up as you can, until you can balance easily. It takes practice – focusing on a fixed spot certainly helps.

For a great leg workout, you need to warm up with some light cardio first. Walk, Run, or ride a bike for about 10 minutes to get the blood pumping and to loosen up. Stretch your legs out and get ready for the hard work to come.:
(Msn Arabia )

Gruesome instruments of torture and the personal effects of victims killed by henchmen of dictator Saddam Hussein haunt Iraqis five years after the fall of his brutal regime.
The display, currently on show in Baghdad, is due to travel across the country in "tribute to the thousands of martyrs" murdered when Saddam was in power, former political prisoner Amed Naji al-Badawi said.
Badawi is on a committee of Iraqi former political prisoners who set up the exhibition in a makeshift museum of horrors on the banks of the Tigris River, in the Shiite neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah.
Nooses hang from the ceiling, and a wooden coffin-like box containing a mediaeval-looking torture rack on which prisoners were pinned and stretched takes centre stage.
Pictures of hangings and bodies are plastered all over the walls.
"These are the horrors of the Saddam regime," said Badawi, a stout man in his 50s who spent five years in the jails of Saddam's feared "mukhabarat" secret service because of his alleged support for the Shiite Dawa party.
He was arrested along with 13 members of his family -- and seven of his brothers were killed by Saddam's goons.
Over the past five years Badawi's committee has helped to locate 106 mass graves and the remains of 1,050 men, women and children killed by members of the ousted regime.
The display was set up to mark the 17th anniversary of the start of a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq on March 1, 1991, a day after Saddam's regime agreed to a truce with US-led coalition forces after its defeat in the first Gulf war.
His regime brutally suppressed the uprising, killing thousands of people.
The names of dozens of those victims are inscribed on black banners hung in the museum, next to a portrait of Shiite leader Mohammed Sadek al-Sadr who was killed in 1999.
The assassination of the Iraqi Shiite dignitary sparked major riots in Najaf, one of Iraq's holiest cities for Shiite Muslims.
In the middle of the room a single doll wrapped in a white shroud represents children killed during the iron-fisted rule of Saddam. It is surrounded with toys and cheap plastic flowers.
Mothers and widows who have visited the museum have broken down in tears at the sight of this display, Badawi said.
Also on show are cases containing the personal effects of some of Saddam's victims, whose remains or mutilated bodies have been found over the past five years in dozens of mass graves across Iraq.
The artefacts include combs, identity cards, a rosary, a sock caked in soil, a fragment of a pair of spectacles and bloodstained clothes. Arrest warrants signed by Saddam himself are also on view.
Among the most horrific objects retrieved by Badawi and his team from the notorious torture rooms of the mukhabarat, and now included in the museum, is a wooden table covered in a worn strip of leather and with a domestic iron placed at one end.
"This is an electrocution table," Badawi said.
"The naked prisoner was bound to the table with a steel bar strapped to his shoulder" to ensure maximum immobility as his torturers electrocuted him or used the iron to inflict burns, Badawi said.
Electric shocks were delivered via electrodes attached to a plastic syringe, the needle of which "was inserted into the urethra of the victim's sexual organ," Badawi added. "The pain was atrocious."
Videos of torture sessions are also screened in a basement room. Terrified prisoners can be seen being beaten, having their arms and legs broken and being thrown from rooftops or blown up with explosives.

First comes that split second of physical attraction. Next that thrilling feeling of chemistry. But when the veil of romance starts to lift, what's life really like off the dance floor?
Too often, love is blind. When Jenny and Michael met, they were instantly attracted to each other. Those electrifying sparks started flying. In an exciting whirlwind of parties and romantic dates, they swept each other off their feet. They decided to get married and live happily ever after. Years later the hormones had calmed down (and so had the fireworks). When the smoke cleared, the mismatches started to emerge. Her passion to shop and his questionable money decisions created constant financial stress. He liked to hang with the guys at the bar. She loved to go to the theater with friends. They disagreed on children and family values, especially religion. Communication broke down. Eventually, they grew apart.
Sound familiar? A physical and chemical match is essential at the start, but the excitement of a budding new romance eventually wears off. Making thoughtful dating decisions can mean the difference between revolving relationships and finding lasting love.
Dating experts outline seven match areas to consider:
Physical appearance While physical appearance and attraction draw two people together at first, these aspects will affect the rest of their lives. If working out and staying fit is important to you, will it bum you out if your mate doesn't share your quest for rock hard abs?
Emotional maturity Is this person emotionally mature and centered or are they still lugging around some trunk-sized baggage? How does your sweetheart relate to family and friends? Is he or she emotionally supportive or have control issues? Is your mate aware of his or her own issues and interested in addressing them?
Lifestyle choices This includes career and social lives, common interests, leisure time activities and energy levels. Would she rather join the bowling league or the metropolitan symphony? Does he have lots of energy for activities with friends while she'd rather rest and chill out at home?
Financial style This is a hot bed for most couples. It includes income levels, financial goals and views on handling money. How do you each want to spend, save and invest? Is one person a spender while the other saves? Is one person financially responsible while the other plays catch-up with child support and bills?
Value structure This match area is often overlooked but has a tremendous impact on your life. It includes the big values: Honesty, integrity, loyalty, views on family and children, religion and spirituality, life goals and the treatment and care for others. Does your mate follow through on her word? Would you say he's trustworthy? Will she always be there for you in a pinch?
Marriage and sex Everyone does not share the same idea of marriage. The big questions to address are: What do you and your mate expect from marriage and sex? Is he or she looking for a soul mate? Do you both want close intimacy in friendship, communication and sex?
Intelligence Having similar education levels increases your chances of sharing matching school and social experiences, intellectual interests and career goals. What topics do you and your honey like to talk about? Conversation limited to sports or shopping may get boring to someone who likes to ponder philosophy and bluster about business.
While you don't have to match exactly in each area, look at the big picture and make sure you match closely enough in the important areas of your life.
Dee Anne Merriman is a freelance writer who often covers relationship issues(msn)