Oy vey!

While checking in at The Belmont Club this morning, I expanded Wretchard's post: Whispers in the Execution Chamber. It starts out: "John Burns of the NYT, who really is one of the best journalists to cover Iraq writes about the American-Iraqi struggle over the execution of Saddam Hussein. He describes how conflicting cultures, political objectives and styles confronted each other over the issue of when and how to hang Saddam Hussein."

Indeed, the article gives great insights into the challenges that our military faces in dealing with the culture that exists in Iraq today. Despite the cluck-clucking over Hussein's execution last week, it appears that the Americans wanted to slow things down. Of course, the distinction between "it's Bush's fault" and the taste for blood developed by an oppressed people is not so throroughly developed in the stories that I've seen and heard over the last week. Burns and his co-writers take five pages to tell the story.

Take some time to read In Days Before Hanging, a Push for Revenge and a Push Back From the U.S.. No matter where you stand on the war, you'll learn a lot about the situation on the ground in Iraq.