BAGHDAD, Iraq - 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 Maliki's government is led by Shiite Muslim radicals and cannot be counted on to disarm Shiite militias.Wowzers. How'd they come to notice that? I mean, it's so subtle...
Several U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington said that, practically speaking, the Bush administration no longer can expect Maliki to tackle the militias because Saddam's hanging exposed the depth of the government's sectarianism.
I've been reading through some of the stuff we have from 2004, contrasting Maliki with Allawi. The diffo's like night and day -- and Allawi's a Sunni.
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.
Remember the whole idea was to set up a "government of national unity." Governments of national unity boil the problems in the same pot with the solutions.
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's assuming there's a difference between the two. Successful states don't have militias. Force is a monopoly of government.
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.