President Bush has hailed the decision of an Iraqi court sentencing former President Saddam Hussein to death as an important achievement for democracy in Iraq.
Hussein, who was sentenced to death by hanging yesterday, has 30 days to appeal.
In a statement, President Bush said the guilty verdict showed that 'the Iraqi people are replacing the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.'
"It is a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government. The man who once struck fear in the hearts of Iraqis had to listen to free Iraqis recount the acts of torture and murder that he ordered against their families and against them," Bush said.
"Today, the victims of this regime have received a measure of justice which many thought would never come." he, said, however adding, "Iraq has a lot of work ahead, as it builds a society that delivers equal justice and protects all its citizens. Yet, history will record judgment as an important achievement on the path to a free and just and unified society."
Opposition Democratic Party leaders also hailed the verdict but kept intact their ongoing attack on Bush's Iraq policy.
"Tragically, I believe the verdict does not change the fact that the administration's policy in Iraq has been the most incompetent execution of American foreign policy in my lifetime," said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer.
Senate Minority Leader Harry M Reid said: "The Iraqis have traded a dictator for chaos.
Neither option is acceptable, especially when it is our troops who are caught in the middle."
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, in a television interview, called the court's decision 'a great verdict' and said: 'Hussein is a war criminal and he's getting what he deserves.'
'This war was a miscalculation by people who did not understand what they were getting into. And if they had listened to Colin Powell (former Secretary of State) and the rest of the military, they would not have gotten into it,' he added.
