Worse Than Saddam

And he oughta know, because as interim Prime Minister, he's the proximate cause:

Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to the country's first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam's regime.

'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' Ayad Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.'

In a damning and wide-ranging indictment of Iraq's escalating human rights catastrophe, Allawi accused fellow Shias in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centres. The brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam's secret police, he said.

This is the guy that allegedly shot a bunch of insurgents execution-style in the back of the head. So if anyone would be the go-to source about Iraqi human rights abuses, it's this guy. I'm only surprised that he's surprised about it.

Some of this is politics, given that Allawi stands to gain in the upcoming elections, and he's slamming the status quo as represented by the current government. But I think this accurately represents the view in Iraq, and that's a crushing blows to our hopes there. When militias can gun down Sunni leaders while wearing Iraqi Army uniforms, clearly they're beyond the government's control. Of course, if we leave Iraq NOW there will be chaos. Yeah. As if there isn't chaos already.