And relax...

Robert Scheer: Silencing Saddam

...the United States can invade a country on false pretenses, depose its leader and summarily execute him without an international trial or appeals process. This is about vengeance, not justice, for if it were the latter the existing international norms would have been observed. The trial should have been overseen by the World Court, in a country that could have guaranteed the safety of defense lawyers, who, in this case, were killed or otherwise intimidated.

The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States’ role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush’s father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime.

The caravan lady had this to say:

The British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else. We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime. We have made our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation.

Beckett, like Blair and the entire Labour cabinet, does not support the death penalty. This is, presumably, on moral grounds. The deaths of half a million children caused by western sanctions and the slaughter of scores of thousands of innocent Iraqis by western occupiers is, however, 'a price worth paying'.