The news that Saddam Hussain, President and Dictator of Iraq for over 20 years, has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity has been greeted with enthusiasm from many quarters.

Even those who are usually opposed to the death penalty have not reacted negatively to the outcome of the trial, in the knowledge that Saddam is fully guilty of the crimes for which he is due to be punished.

Saddam was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians during his long reign of terror. He practiced particularly harsh repression against his country's Kurds and Shias.

However, there is a large part of the Saddam story that is not being told in the current coverage of his trial - yet is crucial for future generations to know and understand. This is the role of the USA and Britain in the rise of Saddam Hussain. Unknown to many, Saddam was banned from talking about his relationship with the USA and Britain throughout the duration of his trial.

For many years, Saddam was considered an ally of the West. It is widely documented that he was very popular with the USA in the 1980s.

When he took control of Iraq, he used to be called 'America's favourite dictator' - a title that is currently applied to General Parvez Musharraf of Pakistan. It was none other than Donald Rumsfield, current United States Secretary of Defence, who acted as a special envoy to Iraq in 1983 to cultivate Saddam as an ally in the Middle East. At the time, Iraq was in the third year of its long and bloody war against Iran.

The governments of America and Britain approved shipments of biological weapons to Saddam in the 1980s, and neither country were particularly concerned when Iran's soldier suffered gas attacks with chemical weapons such as 'Mustard Gas' and 'Tabun'. The West actively supported Saddam during this period.

America and Britain were also little concerned when Saddam massacred 180,000 Kurds during 1987-1988.

It is all well and good celebrating the fall of a brutal dictator, but it is important for us to know the duplicity and double standards of the way that the countries in which we live have handled their foreign policy, with little regard for human life.

All along, the governments of Britain and the USA have been concerned first and foremost with their own national interests. Any genuine concern for wider humanity is a sham.

Today, the countries in which we live continue to support and uphold some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world, providing that these regimes fall in line with their foreign policies, making a mockery of the supposed aim of spreading democracy and fighting terror. Justice will only truly be done when this is exposed.