Executed

BBC

It was only nine o'clock in the evening in Crawford but George Bush was already embedded in the land of nod, with orders not to be woken until the morning. The blithe indifference of deep slumber was the final snub to the dead man who once described himself as "Salahadin II", "the Redeemer of all the Arabs" and "the Lion of Baghdad".

Indeed, the man once dubbed by the west as 'the Iraqi strongman' before he became less of a middle-eastern tool.

Shortly thereafter the White House issued a pre-prepared written statement: "Today Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial - the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime."

A fair trial, in an occupied country?

President Bush and his advisers have always liked to compare the birth pangs of Iraqi democracy to the emergence of a free Germany after the World War II. Bloodletting But what they were dealing with was not Germany 1945 but Germany in 1648 emerging from the feudal bloodbath of the 30 years war. Another example would have been Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Al Jazeera

For some Iraqi Kurds, the execution was a "fair decision" regardless of timing, though it has dashed hopes of justice for crimes against them. Saddam was due to face charges against Iraqi Kurds during a second trial in what is known as the Anfal, or "spoils of war", campaign. This was due to resume next month.

Is that democratic justice? Perhaps the people in charge couldn't risk the truth about US-Iraqi relations being discussed in court.

And now what of the man who - apparently - was really behind the September 11th 2001 attacks, namely Bin Laden?