US President George W. Bush speaks to the media about the Saddam Hussein trial verdict at Waco TSTC airport in Texas yesterday. -Xinhua/Reuters

US President George W. Bush hailed yesterday's verdict of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein as "a milestone" for Iraq.

"The trial is a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law," Bush said in a brief statement in Waco, Texas.

"It's a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government," Bush said.

Earlier on Sunday, Saddam and two of his senior aides were sentenced to death by hanging after the Iraqi High Tribunal found them guilty of crimes against humanity over the execution of 148 Shiite villagers of Dujail in crackdown on the town after a failed assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982.

White House spokesman Tony Snow expressed welcome on Sunday over Saddam's death sentence and denied any U.S. role in the trial.

Iraqis conducted the trial and the Iraqi judges are the ones who spent all the time pouring over the evidence, Snow said, adding that "it's important to give them credit for running their own government."

"The (Iraqi) judiciary is operating independently and we need to give them credit for doing their job and doing it in the way they saw fit and proper," Snow said.

Snow also denied any U.S. role in the timing of Saddam's death verdict. The idea that "somehow we've been scheming and plotting with the Iraqis" is "preposterous," Snow said.

The United States is to hold key mid-term elections in two days and the Bush administration has been accused of announcing the Saddam verdict ahead of the elections to boost the weakened Republicans.

The United States invaded Iraq and toppled the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003 under the excuses that the Saddam Hussein regime had weapons of mass destruction and had ties with al Qaeda, the network accused by the United States of launching the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

However, no evidence has ever been found that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or had any ties with al Qaeda. Bush has since claimed that Saddam is a sworn enemy of the United States and the world is better off without him in power.