The end of an era.

In early 2001, Middle East analyst Gerald Butt wrote on the BBC, "In a region where despotic rule is the norm, he is more feared by his own people than any other head of state." He quoted a former Iraqi diplomat living in exile: "'Saddam is a dictator who is willing to sacrifice his country, just so long as he can remain on his throne in Baghdad.'"

He was recently convicted for the massacre of 148 Shiite Muslims - the opposition to his Sunni Ba'athist party, but he is responsible for a horrific number of deaths. His crimes include the genocide of as many as two hundred thousand ethnic Kurds in two campaigns - one in 1988 and one immediately after the Persian Gulf War.Do you remember how he killed them? He killed them with nerve gasses - mustard gas and sarin. His regime was notorious for its methods of torture, which included acid baths and professional rapists. He murdered his own son-in-law. Reports that he fed political opponents into industrial meat grinders and wood chippers have never been satisfactorily proved, but significant evidence to this point was introduced at his trial.

Tonight at just past 10 PM the word went out to the world that Saddam is dead, hanged for his recent conviction. CBS's Katie Couric broadcast the report I heard, and she was careful to point out that he was accused of genocide and torture. In the face of the dozens of mass graves that have turned up in Iraq in the last three and a half years, I am dumbfounded by her inability to own up to the fact that Saddam was actually a murderous despot. Of course, her predecessor is Dan Rather, who was granted a famously chummy interview with Saddam right before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. But, looking beyond Katie Couric's lack of moral courage and inability to call a spade a spade or a brutal dictator a brutal dictator....

Many say that the death of Saddam will have no positive effects on the path to establishing a free, stable Iraq. I think we can afford to be cautiously optimistic. Those who are working to rebuild Iraq haven't had much of a psychological boost in a long time. With Saddam's death the people of Iraq can finally close the door on three blood-soaked decades and look forward. With Saddam's death the people of Iraq can finish freeing themselves of the long shadow he casts on their national consciousness. The changes may not be immediate, but they will come.