Chaos during hanging raises U.S. doubt on Iraqi leader

The disorder at Saddam Hussein's execution has made some American and Iraqi officials conclude that Iraq's current government may not be able to disarm Shiite militias.
BY NANCY A. YOUSSEF
McClatchy News Service
BAGHDAD - The taunts and insults hurled at Saddam Hussein minutes before his execution Saturday have prompted some U.S. officials and Iraqi politicians to conclude that Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's government is led by Shiite Muslim radicals and can't be counted on to disarm Shiite militias.

Several U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington told McClatchy News Service that, practically speaking, the Bush administration no longer can expect Maliki to tackle the militias because Hussein's hanging exposed the depth of the government's sectarianism.

The scene at the execution ''confirms everyone's worst speculations about the government: It is sectarian and incompetent,'' said a U.S. official who agreed to speak under a promise of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. The militias and Maliki's government are intertwined ''so much that you don't know for sure from issue to issue what is the militia and what is the government,'' the official said.

That assessment underscores the Bush administration's challenge as it considers sending thousands of additional U.S. troops to confront Iraq's growing sectarian violence.

more: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/16378698.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_world

Maliki is no longer useful to the admin, looks like it's time to throw him under the bus and let him resign

Without access to secret documents, from across an ocean, most of us can look at what Iraq has become and see that the Shiites have indeed taken over the government and that Bush's invasion has created another Muslim theocracy in everything but name.

Shi'ite theocracy. And no amount of spinning, hedging, or out-and-out lying will cover up that fact.

Anyone who's surprised is an idiot. Or a liar.

"Iraqi authorities report the arrests of two guards and an official in the investigation into who taunted Saddam Hussein as he stood on the gallows and took cell phone pictures showing his body dangling at the end of a rope."

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"The clandestine footage appeared on Al-Jazeera television and Web sites just hours after Saddam was hanged Saturday. The tumultuous scenes quickly overshadowed an official execution video, which was muted and showed none of the uproar among those on the floor of the chamber below the gallows."


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