Yesterday's execution, by hanging, of Saddam Hussein, has been declared by those in power in, and over that tragic country as an important milestone for Iraq.

Perhaps it is, but just how much will likely take time to be fully revealed. That milestone, in the short term, however, is unlikely to be this critical marker on a route to democracy, stability and peace as the U.S. President George W. Bush supposes it to be.

For now, and possibly much longer than now, this execution is likely only to fuel Iraq's sectarian conflict and push the country deeper into civil war. In an ironically perverse way, Saddam's death could place additional pressure on President Bush to change his Iraq policy rather than provide his administration an opportunity to be exploited with arguments that things are going well.

This dilemma for President Bush and his junior partner, Mr. Tony Blair of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, has its roots deep in how they planned and executed the Iraq project.

Most of the world had long accepted that Saddam was a dictator and tyrant who had led his country into disastrous wars with Iran and an international coalition that drove him out of Kuwait. But the case, as advanced for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was spurious, and as many in the international community have insisted, lacked a sound legal foundation. It rested on claims that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), when Hans Blix, the United Nations inspector, had found none, as well as 'sexed-up' dossiers about Saddam's capacity to attack and destroy enemies. There was, too, the specious claim of a link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 terror attack on America.

Ultimately, the invasion of Iraq and the deposing of Saddam was founded on the neo-con ideology of the projection of power, which makes preemptive strikes and regime change acceptable, even if the legal basis is weak and it requires largely unilateral action. So the Iraq project lacked global consensus.

Moreover, there was too much of a sense of triumphalism at the quick removal of Saddam's regime, and no thought about how to heal the inevitable fractures that would arise with the overthrow of a regime that was in power for quarter of a century and had used muscle to keep the lid on sectarian rivalries. What has emerged in Iraq is a civil war between Shias and Sunnis - one the emergent force, the other embittered by its loss of power and feeling that it is fighting for survival.

Saddam's trial, in the circumstances, had the sense of victor's justice - American and Shia - which was not helped by the fact that the crime for which he was convicted was the execution of Shias in the wake of the 1982 assassination attempt against the then leader. Human rights groups have questioned both the conduct of the trial and the quality of the evidence offered.

The largely Sunni insurgency that followed the invasion has cost the lives of about 3,000 American soldiers as well as well over 20,000 injuries. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the civil war.

Saddam, up to the time of his execution, was hardly relevant to the insurgency/civil war, which had a life of its own. It is now possible that, hanged as he was, he may become iconic to Sunnis, a fuel to their rebellion. Therein lies a potentially grave problem for President Bush and the Iraq government, complicating plans for any orderly withdrawal by America.

The process of his downfall is one thing, but it would have made greater sense if Saddam had been tried by the International Criminal Court, to which, unfortunately, the Americans do not adhere. The trial and verdict would have had greater global legitimacy, even among Iraqi Sunnis,we believe.

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