Everyone knew what the verdict of the Saddam Hussein trial in Baghdad would be. It was a stage-managed affair, not because Saddam Hussein is innocent of the crimes he is accused of, but because the script and the conclusion of the trial had already been written in Washington. The western powers wanted a symbolic demonstration that the regime they had overthrown was really finished. And they got what they wanted.

But the mere fact that the trial verdict was announced on the eve of the US Congress election, in which Bush is predicted to face a disaster, is more than just a symbol. It is evidence of the fact that Iraq's "democratic" justice is but a tool in the hands of Bush's election machinery!

Indeed, contrary to what Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett declared in the following hours, this verdict has nothing to do with "justice". Nor is it the expression of a population emerging from 24 years of dictatorship to build a new Iraq . It is the crude expression of the diktats of Washington and London, backed up by the fire power of the world's most powerful army and an indefinite curfew on Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.

What of Saddam's Western minders?

Most conspicuous by their absence in the dock in this trial were Saddam's old Western minders.

How can it be forgotten that, for most of his time at the helm of Iraq's Baath dictatorship, Saddam was but an auxiliary of the rich western countries' power games in the Middle East, including against his own people?

During his trial, where were the CIA and MI5 officials who aided and abetted Saddam in his efforts to smash the Iraqi working class movement and Communist Party?

Many of the weapons that he used against the Iranian population, during the most bloody war of that period, as well as against his own people, were provided and funded by Western powers. During this trial, where were the western arms manufacturers who sold him these weapons and the western ministers who funded his army?

In the heyday of Saddam's regime, there was no question of the West blaming him for resorting to chemical weapons against the Iranians or even against his own population. During his Anfal campaign, for which he still has to be tried, the Daily Telegraph even managed to blame his gassing of Kurdish villages on Iran!

If, as Margaret Beckett says, one should rejoice that Saddam Hussein "has been held to account", what about the Thatchers, the Reagans and all those who endorsed their criminal policies, by failing to expose the use of Saddam's state terrorism? When will they ever be "held to account"?

And what about today's criminals?

In any case, one thing the US and British governments cannot blame on Saddam Hussein is the catastrophic situation their invasion of Iraq has created for the country and its population.

Not only has the invasion destroyed much of Iraq's infrastructure and forced over 3.5m Iraqis out of their homes and many more into destitution. Not only has it claimed over 600,000 civilians' lives. But it has paved the way for a bloody civil war between militias vying for political power.

Bush and Blair can blame al-Qaeda and "international terrorism" for this until the end of time. But the facts speak for themselves. On the day before the verdict, 67 civilian Iraqis were officially killed across the country, 53 of them having been shot by the western-trained Iraqi army.

The truth is, that the very forces on which London and Washington claim to be relying in order to bring back some sort of normality to Iraq - the new police and army, trained and equipped by the occupation forces - are themselves vehicles for the warring militias. Just as the western-backed so-called "democratic" government is itself an uneasy coalition of politicians allied to these militias. As such, they are all part of the problem, not part of the solution.

When London and Washington finally choose to pull their troops out, and the sooner the better, the bill left for the Iraqi people will be exorbitant. And there is not even the slightest guarantee that the regime that will come out of this bloody mess will be any better than Saddam's.

As to the Bush's, the Blairs and the other criminals responsible for this mess, it will be up to us working people to see to it that they are "held to account".