Steyn on the execution:
Unfortunately, when the US handed him over to the Iraqi authorities, the "authorities" did their best to look entirely unauthorized. Saddam was dispatched in some dingy low-ceilinged windowless room of one of his old secret-police torture joints by a handful of goons in ski masks and black leather jackets. It looked less like the dawn of a new Iraq than a Russian mafia mob hit. A couple of guards gleefully yelled out, "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada" - as in Moqtada al-Sadr - to which Saddam added a disbelieving echo: "Moqtada?"
As well he might. It’s one thing to be done in by Bush but by forces loyal to the punk son of some nickel-and-dime cleric you had murdered years ago… Granted, it was more genteel than the, ah, change of government in Liberia in 1990, when Prince Johnson had President Doe’s ears sliced off and stuffed them in His Excellency’s mouth before cutting off the presidential genitals and eating them himself in the belief that the "powers" of the person whose parts you’re chowing down on are transferred to the diner. But the general vibe was a bit too similar.
And the many Muslims around the world who see this video and hear the "Moqtada!" cries may agree with the pithy summation of the Powerline blog: The thug is dead. Long live the thug! Given that Saddam was transferred from coalition custody to the Iraqi government only a few hours before his demise, I’d be interested to know whether US authorities proffered any "advice" on the optics: Ixnay on the torture dungeon, maybe in the exercise yard with a couple of Iraqi flags; get the heavies out of the Quentin Tarantino get-up and into some neutral prison-warden garb or Baghdad Airport parking-garage-attendant uniforms; if you have to have victims’ loved ones present, go for the widows and photogenic orphans rather than Moqtada’s boys. Meta-message: "Time to move on, says Government of Free Iraq", not "Payback’s a bitch, says local enforcer."
