The US television networks repeatedly broadcasted footage of two demonstrations in Baghdad. The first was that of supporters of the Iraqi Communist Party, while the second was organised by a Shiite Muslim faction. While both these predilection have co-operated to one degree or another with the US occupations neither seems a likely pedestal for some new and stable US-backed regime.

US officials have also declined to clarify how they will deal with Saddam now that he is in custody. General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US occupation troops in Iraq, deviated questions about whether he would be turned over to Iraq's Governing Council or brought before a special tribunal.

Whatever is done with Hussein will be in favour of US.The Iraqi Governing Council and the new tribunal are both creations of Washington and have no legitimacy. The US occupation has no authority under international law to carry out any trial of former Iraqi officials.

If war crime charges are to be brought in relation to Iraq, the most serious one of all would be leveled against the Bush administration itself for plotting and carrying on an unprovoked war of aggression.

There are good reasons for US to want to avoid any public prosecution of Hussein. Occupation officials described him as "cooperative" upon his capture. This adjective could equally be used to describe his relations with US administrations over years.

The regime's greatest crimes against people -- the Iran-Iraq war, the suppression of the Shiites and Kurds, etc. -- were carried out with Washington's active support. This involved the direct participation of some of those who now play leading roles in US policy, such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Bush's new special envoy, former secretary of state James Baker.

The path that led Saddam to power in Iraq began in 1957 when at the age of 20 he joined the Arab Baath Socialist Party. The Baathists have frequently been described in the media as "national socialists," but this definition is useful only within strict limits. To equate Baathism with Nazism and Saddam with Adolf Hitler, as both Washington and the Zionist regime in Israeli have frequently done, is a volitive distortion.

Iraq is a backward and historically oppressed country, not an imperialist power bent on global conquest. Saddam led a ruthless dictatorship that systematically repressed the Iraqi working class. There was a definite distinction, however, between the kind of nationalist movement he led and the semi-feudal regimes that were installed by British imperialism, like that of Nuri al Said, who was regarded as a traitor by his own people and the entire Arab world.

In a televised address, Bush read out a "message to the Iraqi people" declaring that the capture of Hussein ended "dark and painful era" and signalled the arrival of "hopeful day." The US president claimed that the event would further a US policy aimed at bringing "sovereignty for your country, dignity for your great culture and, for every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life."

It will be a dream come true if Iraqis are granted sovereignty. But, the Bush administration has embarked on a programme to re-colonise Iraq and seize its oil wealth and strategic geopolitical position in order to further a programme of global US hegemony. The occupation has stripped the Iraqi people of their dignity, creating growing support for attacks on US forces. Iraqis face mass unemployment and poverty, opportunity being granted in unlimited amounts to corrupt or politically connected corporations like Halliburton to pillage both Iraq's resources and US taxpayers funds.

The apprehension of the former Iraqi dictator will do nothing to legitimise either the illegal occupation or the cronies that Washington has selected to form a regime with an "Iraqi face." Nor in the end will it halt the escalating bloodshed that is claiming the lives of both Iraqis and young American soldiers.

The Bush administration clearly hopes that Hussein's capture will bring a more or less rapid disintegration of Iraqi resistance to the occupation. Instead, it is likely to have just opposite effect. The unintended impact of the capture of the former Iraqi president will be that of further delegitimising the US occupation and thereby intensifying the conflict.

The question that will inevitably propagate all the more forcefully is, if Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat, then why are 130,000 US troops still in Iraq? The obvious answer is that the US has no intention of leaving. It has carried out a predatory war and intends to maintain a permanent occupation to assure itself unrestricted control of the vital energy resources of the region.

While the ties between Hussein and Washington have been largely camouflaged from the US public, they are widely known among the politically literate population of Iraq. The real question is whether the likes of Rumsfeld and Baker are to be regarded as accomplices of Saddam Hussein's crimes, or whether Hussein himself was merely the accomplice in the greater crimes of US imperialism.

Bush's desolated pledge that Saddam Hussein will face "justice" needs to be addressed for immediate withdrawal of all US officials responsible for the present war that claimed thousands of Iraqi lives and be held accountable for these crimes.

Billy I Ahmed is a researcher