The Associated Press reports the verdict in the Iraqi trial of former Dictator and Chief Thug Saddam Hussein, and it's to be death by hanging within the month.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced Saddam Hussein to the gallows for crimes against humanity, closing a quarter-century-old chapter of violent suppression in this land of long memories, deep grudges and sectarian slaughter.

The former Iraqi dictator and six subordinates were convicted and sentenced for the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite town after an attempt on his life there.

European allies whimpered and wrung their hands about Saddam' death sentence, their lofty morality immovable, even in the face of mass murder and crimes against humanity:

But symbolic of the split between the United States and many of its traditional allies over the Iraq war, many European nations voiced opposition to the death sentences in the case, including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. A leading Italian opposition figure called on the continent to press for Saddam's sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment.

Of course, this being reported by AP, also includes an obligatory anti-Bush aside (there is a US election imminent, after all):

Lost in the drama of Sunday's death sentence was any mention of the failed search for the alleged weapons of mass destruction that Bush said led the United States to invade and occupy Iraq in March 2003.

One has to wonder how the modern AP might have reported the surrender of the Japanese. No doubt making comparisons to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and how the numbers of Japanese civilians killed in that attack dwarfed the number of military personnel killed at Pearl Harbor.

The AP wasn't finished there, though, and includes several critical reactions from US and International "human rights" activists who doubt that Saddam "got a fair trial." Here's one:

"The problem really is that this tribunal has not shown itself to be fair and impartial — not only by international standards, but by Iraqi standards," said Sonya Sceats, an international law expert at the Chatham House foreign affairs think tank in London.

And another:

Miranda Sissons, head of the Iraq program at the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York, said: "There will always be some doubt as to how much influence it exerted on the trial."

Is there anyone in their right mind that thinks slaughering civilians, using chemical weapons on them, feeding innocents into wood chippers live, setting up rape rooms were family members are raped and executed in front of captives, these crimes necessitate the most stringent of legal frameworks. In any era previous to this, the most civlized of victors against a brutal regime promptly executes such evil men, and be done with it.

Just incredible that anyone wastes any time at all worrying about such things. They've lost their minds in their hatred of anything to do with the US advancing democracy.

Hard to imagine they're saying such things, weeping and wringing their hands over Saddam. Even more amazing that the AP so sympathetically gives coverage to such garbage.