I wonder if they’ll hang this guy too:

Guard questioned about video of Hussein execution

From the article:

Iraq’s national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who was an official observer at the hanging, told CNN on Wednesday that the execution was “not a sectarian lynching” but that some of the behavior in the execution chamber was “unacceptable.”

“I believe the whole process has been infiltrated by people who have a vested interest in escalating the violence,” al-Rubaie said. “They wanted to promote a political cause for themselves or for their groups or for their leader or whatever, but I believe the Iraqi government has done the proper thing.”

Right, because we wouldn’t want the death of Saddam Hussein to be exploited for political reasons.

One other interesting bit from the article:

The execution would have been done differently had the United States been in charge, a U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday.

“But that was not our decision,” U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said during a Baghdad news conference. “That was the government of Iraq’s decision. This is a sovereign nation and they’re going to learn from each thing they do.”U.S. officials reportedly tried to delay the execution, fearing it would fuel perceptions the death of the former Iraqi dictator was more about Shiite retribution than about justice.

If we have so little say in what goes on that our security concerns can by summarily ignored, then why are we continuing to help them secure the country. Just how independent are they? I would like a reasonable answer to that question. It’s not like this is the first time this sort of thing has come up.