Guardian readers are probably sad right now, and wondering what the USA might have done to make Ali such a misunderstood person.

Ali Hassan al-Majid a former Iraqi official known as Chemical Ali, has been executed by hanging, a government spokesman has announced.

Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein’s regime and his cousin, had earlier been sentenced to death four times for genocide and crimes against humanity.

In January, he was sentenced to death for ordering the gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988.

Iraq knows how to deal with the very worst criminals – it is a right that every sovereign country has to make and prosecute its own laws, and therefore one, predicatably, that we ourselves gave away years ago.

Meanwhile, the guy Obama promised to catch or kill (then changed his mind, and said Osama was no big deal), has taken credit for the attempted Christmas Day bombing (readers will recall that TheEye is signed up to the ‘he’s dead’ school of thought) in a new message, “from Osama to Obama.” He promises new attacks, and

Until there is “security in Palestine” and an end to U.S. support of Israel, bin Laden says, “America shall not dream about security.”

Considering how much Comrade Obama is indulging on pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli rhetoric, this should mean that Western civilization is looking pretty safe at the moment. Ironic timing then, that Brown should choose now to play politics with the UK terror threat level and raise it to Severe just in time to scare voters before a, um, General Election. If people are worried then they are less likely to change governments, you think McDoom? Wrong.