THE £10m price tags placed on the heads of Uday and Qusay Hussein reflect the pivotal role they played in their father's reign of terror in Iraq.

They were evil men, guilty of heinous crimes, who posed a grave danger as long as they remained at large.

Last night's report of their deaths provides some respite for George Bush and Tony Blair, whose conduct regarding Iraq has come under intense scrutiny.

For President Bush, in particular, the news is certainly welcome.

It is now three months since he declared to the American people that the war was over. In doing so he gave the impression that hostilities were at an end, and that US troops would soon be heading home.

However, hostilities are far from over. Yesterday morning the tally of US soldiers killed in Iraq rose to 153.

While there is no war on the battlefields of Iraq, the guerrilla war waged against the US by snipers and ambush units continues.

The scale and resilience of those still loyal to Saddam Hussein's regime was not expected.

That is why so much hope is stored in the report of the death of Saddam's sons, and that this may signal the end of the resistance.

But with Saddam still at large, the focal point around which loyalists can gather still remains. Until he is confirmed as either eliminated or captured, the death toll among members of the US and British armed services will continue.

Such an unstable situation makes a mockery of a United Nations report published this week, calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of Coalition forces.

While the establishment of a fully democratic administration in Iraq remains the goal, it looks some way off.

The demise of Uday and Qusay Hussein does not necessarily accelerate the advance of democracy.

Until the remnants of Saddam's regime can be rounded up, the US and British forces will increasingly be seen as an army of occupation, rather than the army of liberation they promised to be.