As his final moments approached, he grew calm. He clutched a Quran as he was led to the gallows, and in one final moment of defiance, said Blair and Bush would soon join him.

It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who was a friend of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and three U.S. Presidents whose orders he carried out.

Bush said in a statement, issued from his ranch in Texas, that hanging Saddam "is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a failed state run by Iran and Saudi."

He said that the hanging marks the "end of a difficult year for Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld as Saddam was about to testify that they gave him the WMD to slaughter the Kurds."

Shortly before the execution, Saddam was asked if he wanted to say something.

"Yes I do," he said, "Bush and Blair are low life criminals and murderers and they have murdered 600,000 women and children here in Iraq after an illegal invasion."