No La Cosa Nostra capo di tutti capi, international drug lord, or mass serial killer could possibly compete with the brutal criminality of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

The evil dictator, who may or may not have been killed in the first strike of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a subsequent attack on a suspected leadership meeting, has committed some of the world’s most heinous criminal acts. He has ruled Iraq through fear, intimidation, torture and murder.

As I write this on April 10^th I’m sitting at my desk in my own private "war room," watching Fox Cable News and scanning the Internet to track the progress of U.S. and coalition troops as they take Baghdad. I’m particularly interested in news about my old ship, the USS Kitty Hawk. The aircraft carrier, the U.S. Navy’s oldest active duty warship, is launching aircraft that are performing strike missions in support of the ground troops in Iraq.

My war room is my book-lined basement-den. Military maps of Iraq now accompany the older maps, photos, "I was there" medals, citations, and other mementos from my small role in an earlier American conflict - the Vietnam War.

As an Ian Fleming enthusiast, I was pleased to see that the British troops are using code names associated with Fleming and his James Bond character. Our long-time allies and "cousins" have code-named their targets "Goldfinger," "Blofeld" and "Connery." "Operation James" was the code name of a British military engagement.

According to an Associated Press report, a British military spokesman called the Fleming/Bond code-names an "exhibition of the British sense of humor." The names also serve to confuse the enemy, help the British soldiers remember the code words, and boost morale. Bond, after all, is a British heroic character known throughout the world.

Ian Fleming wrote about villains like Saddam Hussein. Like Goldfinger or Blofeld, he’s a megalomaniac and a mass murderer. Born in 1937, he began his criminal career as a teenage gunman and assassin. He went to jail for six months in 1958 for the murder of his communist brother-in-law. (He would also kill his two son-in-laws in 1996). He spent another jail term in the early 1960s for attempting to overthrow the government and by 1968, he would help the Baath Party successfully overthrow the government.

Saddam Hussein became Iraq’s prime minister and commander of the armed forces in 1979. He led Iraq to war against Iran in 1980 and would go on to use mustard gas against the Iranians in 1984. He used chemical weapons again in 1988, murdering more than 5,000 Kurds.

The "Butcher of Baghdad" invaded Kuwait in 1990 and one year later American and coalition forces in "Operation Desert Storm" pushed him into retreat. Although he was militarily defeated, he managed to remain in power.

Michael Kelly, a Washington Post columnist and the editor-at-large for The Atlantic Magazine, was recently killed in a Humvee accident while traveling with the troops in Iraq. He also covered the last Gulf War and wrote a book called "Martyr’s Day."

"One vast crime scene," was how Kelly described Kuwait after the Iraqis were defeated in 1991. He wrote of how he toured the local morgue and offered an eyewitness account of the tortured and murdered victims that Saddam Hussein’s vicious army left behind.

Saddam Hussein has committed some of the worst crimes against humanity and he has used the power and instruments of state to live the high, lavish life of a criminal. Now, after only three weeks of military operations, we see on television the images of free Iraqis and U.S. soldiers bringing down a huge statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that the scene reminded him of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Iron Curtain.

"We’re seeing history unfold and events that will shape the course of a country, a fate of a people and potentially the future of the region," Rumsfeld said. "Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin and Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed brutal dictators, and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom."

But the war is not yet over. My hope is for a quick demise of both Saddam Hussein and his criminal regime so our troops can come home safely. I believe there is a special place in Hell being set for him.