With the death of a tyrant, there’s hope for a better Iraq

If taking his life somehow redeems a people he so viciously oppressed for more than 30 years, if his hanging leads to an end to the chaos and killing that now envelop Iraq, if it stops a divided nation from pursuing retribution in the name of sectarian beliefs for what seems to have been an eternity of injustices, it can be called a good death.

That he was given a trial that by no measure can be called fair does not negate the evidence of his ruthless atrocities. The single incident for which he was convicted -- the revenge killing of 148 Shiite Muslims -- pales in numbers against others who fell at his hand: 5,000 men, women and children poisoned by gas in a Kurdish village, hundreds of his own Baath Party tortured and killed, untold thousands of political prisoners arrested by his secret police and summarily executed. Saddam's murderous ways extended even to members of his own family, ordering the shooting of his daughters' husbands after they had defected.

Saddam's claim to a rough upbringing can hold no sympathy even among those who would argue his execution was inhumane. His reign was horrible, his remorse nonexistent, his evil acts irrevocable.

But there should be no jubilance or triumph moored to his death. The finish should be to find a way past old resentments and to heal a citizenry. Without these, Iraq's future will match its past.