LEGITIMACY AND IRAQI LAW

"There's a very interesting article at Der Spiegel on the unofficial video of Saddam's execution.

I imagine that quite a few people in the US have seen the sanitized "official" video which aired on all the major media over the weekend, but the unofficial version, apparently shot by cell phone, gives a much different atmosphere. The unofficial version also makes clear that the execution was hijacked by the Sadrists. According to Der Spiegel, a spokesman for al-Maliki claims that the unofficial video gives the Sadrists a bad name, but I doubt that the Sadrists needed this video for that purpose. Additionally, the spokesman vows that the government will get to the bottom of the incident.

Sure it will.

US authorities held Saddam in custody until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his corpse being mutilated.

That makes no sense. If the US kept Saddam in custody "until the execution" to ensure that his corpse would not be mutilated, then how would the US have prevented his corpse from being mutilated? Unless the US insisted upon retaking custody after execution as well, something that it must have done since it flew the corpse to Tikrit for burial. Does that mean that the US was too squeamish to actually carry out the execution? Hard to believe."
Rasti

On this one we can agree to a very great extent. I call it irresponsible, and mismanagement, and the promotion of cheep propaganda.