During Saddam Hussein's 28-year rule, an estimated 300,000 Iraqis were executed, usually without a trial, sometimes after torture. More than a million Iraqis, Iranians and Kuwaitis died in Saddam's wars.

   Sunday, an Iraqi tribunal sentenced the deposed dictator to death by hanging for killing 148 men and boys after a 1982 assassination attempt in Dujail. The youngest was 11 years old.

   Saddam deserves to die. The only question is whether his death will help end the ongoing killing.

   Shiites are crediting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for ``cutting off the snake head,'' reports the New York Times. That strengthens his ability to cut a deal with Sunnis and crack down on murderous Shiite militias. Indeed, the day after the verdict, the government offered to give purged Baathists a chance to get their old jobs back.

   In Mosul, Kurds canceled a celebration rally, instead deciding to distribute gifts to families who lost relatives to Saddam's brutality.

   The feared Sunni explosion was a fizzle; the post-verdict curfew already has been lifted.

   The trial was chaotic: Saddam and co-defendants shouted, cursed, boycotted and showed up in underwear. The chief judge resigned half way through, after accusations he was too sympathetic to Saddam; another judge was gunned down, as were three of Saddam's defense lawyers. At times, defense lawyers weren't shown evidence before it was presented in court.

   But the evidence of guilt was overwhelming: Prosecution witnesses were backed by documents showing Saddam ordered executions. The ex-dictator himself boasted that he saw no crime in the massacre.

   For a nation with little experience with justice, the trial was an important step forward.

   ``This was not a sham trial,'' said Miranda Sissons, of the International Center for Transitional Justice, in the New York Times. ``The judges are doing their best to try this case to an entirely new standard for Iraq.''

   An international tribunal would have had more credibility, but the trial would have taken much longer. And, more important, it would have robbed Iraqis of the opportunity to confront this killer.

   Blogger IraqPundit (www. iraqpundit.blogspot.com), who fled Saddam's Iraq, wrote on Sunday: ``Saddam, his lawyers, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the trial was a sham and `a mockery of justice.' Saddam never gave anyone a fair trial _ if he gave them a trial at all.''

   In 2003, bloggers Omar and Mohammed Fadhil, known as ``Iraq the Model'' (www.iraqthemodel.blogspot.com) told the heartbreaking story of a Dujail survivor who was 7 years old when he was sent to a desert camp with his mother and sisters for four years.

   On Sunday, Mohammed Fadhil wrote: ``Today the truth is out there for the whole world to see, the criminals stand small and shaking while the families of the victims stand proud seeing justice served.

   ``Right now volleys of bullets ring not far from where I sit, some are fired to express joy while others are fired in a desperate expression of denial but I have no doubt who is going to prevail. Although the road is long, we are walking forward and will not look back.''