Saddam Hussein convicted, sentenced to death by hanging.

On November 5, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad to hang for crimes against humanity for the 1982 killings of 148 people from the Shiite village of Dujail. Saddam's half brother and another senior regime official also were sentenced to death, while four other co-defendants received lesser sentences and one was acquitted. Although Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he expects the death sentence to be carried out before the end of the year, others say that the appeal process could push back the execution date into 2007.

On November 7, Saddam and six co-defendants were back in court to face charges of genocide related to his 1988 military campaign against Kurds in northern Iraq, where prosecutors charge that up to 180,000 were killed, many by poison gas, including noncombatants, women and children.

Ironically, none of the charges for which Saddam has been tried, or is now being prosecuted for, relate to the September 11 terrorist attacks or any of the reasons cited as justification for invading Iraq. In fact the crimes against humanity for which he faces the death penalty were carried out while he was being heralded as our great "ally" in the region by the supposed custodians of political wisdom, as typified by leading lights of the Council on Foreign Relations who guided the Reagan and Bush (Senior) administration policies of lavishing aid on Hussein and his murderous regime.