President Bush, yesterday hailed the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, as a sign that the old Iraqi regime was gone for good, and he called for greater international aid for the reconstruction of post-war Iraq, writes Conor O'Clery, North America Editor.
"Saddam Hussein's sons were responsible for torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis," said Mr Bush. "Now more than ever all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back."
Former aides to Saddam Hussein identified the bodies, and medical and dental records confirmed that two men killed in a shoot-out on Tuesday with US forces were Uday and Qusay Hussein, according to the US commander in Iraq, Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez.
The Bush administration was last night considering the publication of photographs of the corpses of the two men to convince sceptical Iraqis that Saddam's feared sons were really dead.
Gen Sanchez said dental tests on the body of Qusay Hussein, heir apparent to the former Iraqi dictator, offered a 100 per cent dental match, and Oday's body provided a 90 per cent match, with 10 per cent eliminated due to injuries to his teeth sustained during the attack.
At a press briefing in Baghdad, Gen Sanchez said he believed a TOW anti-tank missile killed Saddam's sons after US troops twice tried to enter a heavily-fortified villa in Mosul.
Questioned about the overwhelming use of firepower against two lightly-armed men wanted for war crimes and human rights abuses, he said the goal of the mission was to "find, kill or capture" the high-value targets.
White House optimism that the killings will diminish guerrilla attacks on US troops was tempered by the news of the deaths of two more US soldiers yesterday, one near Baghdad, another outside Mosul, and injuries to eight others.
An audio tape purportedly of Saddam, and dated July 20th, was aired by Al Arabiya television yesterday, urging Iraqis to keep up resistance. "Our will will not surrender and won't be defeated. The battle is not over yet," he said.
The careers of two of the regime's "chief henchmen responsible for torture, maiming and murder of countless Iraqis" have come to an end, Mr Bush said in an appearance in the White House Rose Garden.
A few remaining holdouts of the old regime were impeding progress in Iraq, but "these killers are the enemies of the Iraqi people" and "were being hunted and will be defeated".
Mr Bush sought to put a positive face on progress in Iraq. "In the 83 days since I announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq, we have made progress, steady progress in restoring hope in a nation beaten down by decades of tyranny."