SADAMM'D IF YOU DO...

30-12-2006

Even the staunchest peacenik should not mourn the execution of Saddam Hussein. The ex-Iraqi dictator was a brutal genocidal tyrant who deserves to die. But the sad truth is that for most Iraqis it won't make a blind bit of difference.

Remember Britain and America officially invaded for two reasons; to defend themselves from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (which have never been found) and to bring peace and democracy to a benighted country.

Some peace! The respected medical journal The Lancet estimated in October that 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the conflict began in 2003 - compare this to one of Saddam's grossest crimes, the gassing of more than 100,000 Kurds in 1987.

Far from subsiding, the insurgency which our arrival provoked seems to grow ever more intense, and despite the promises of our politicians the day when British troops can return home seems as far off as ever.

Only this week, soldiers from the Staffordshire regiment demolished a police station at Jameat where the local Serious Crimes Unit was suspected of torturing and executing prisoners - a grim example of the new regime that we have helped to install.