Max Hastings probably has some way of squaring all this up in his own mind, but he appears simultaneously to think that Saddam's life should have been terminated with a bullet to the head ('The biggest American mistake was to capture Saddam in the first place'), and to regard his trial as a travesty of justice. He also appears rather confused about what justice now requires for the mass murderer, at once lamenting the fact that Britain might lend support to a hanging so long after capital punishment was abolished in this country and specifying the conditions that would have had to obtain for Saddam's execution to possess - or should that just be seem to possess? - legitimacy ('To justify hanging Saddam, Bush and Blair needed moral ascendancy, which they have forfeited').
Any chance that the great spokesthing of the coalition of the right-minded virtuous might give itself to a forthright expression of moral satisfaction over one of the worst tyrants of recent times being found guilty, finally, for a small fraction of his crimes? Forget about it. Badableep, badabloop, badadunno. Many Iraqis 'jubilant' nonetheless.