One of Park Avenue Autumn's Saddam Hussein plates (via Battman Studios)

Update: The official response of Creative Time--the non-profit art organization which worked with Park Avenue Autumn on the exhibition involving the stolen plates-- as well as that of the U.S. District Attorney's office, can be found at the bottom of the post.

In a story that raises more questions than it answers, stolen dinner plates and several salad plates originally belonging to Saddam Hussein were returned to the Republic of Iraq by the United States government after they were illegally exported out of the country and sold on Ebay.

According the U.S. State Attorney's office, the plates were found at Park Avenue Autumn, where the dining wear belonging to the Iraqi Kingdom's King Faisaii Royal Family was being used as part of a "creative art exhibition," (in conjunction with the art group Creative Time) which included the ability to eat off of them.

When told that the plates had to be returned, the restaurant that New York Magazine once described as "tak(ing) timely dining to the extreme" acquiesced and agreed to release the plates back to the Iraqi people.

How dining plates from Saddam Hussein's house ever ended up on Ebay in the first place, however, continues to remain a mystery. Even odder is the fact that the fruits of the widespread looting being on show was a widely-known and reported fact as early as November, but nothing has been done about it until now.

Update: Creative Time's response (Click to enlarge):
Creative Time maintains that the plates were bought legally over Ebay, although the U.S. Attorney's press release claims that they were illegally imported into the country. Both parties acknowledge that once they were contacted about the stolen nature of the plates, Creative Time agreed to "voluntarily relinquish" them back to the United States Attorney’s Office.

Cooper.

Truth is almost always stranger than fiction, but rarely scarier. This is certainly the case with The Devil’s Double, a deeply alarming film about the tormented life of Latif Yahia, the Iraqi Army lieutenant who looked so much like Saddam Hussein’s son Uday that he was summoned to Baghdad in the days leading up to Desert Storm and assigned the dreaded role of “fiday”, or “body double.”  What followed was a life fouled by corruption and madness at the hands of a lunatic. The centerpiece is a dual performance by popular British actor Dominic Cooper both powerful and nuanced.

Latif does not want the job, but if he refuses to stand in for the psychotic Uday his entire family will be executed. The impersonation is so accurate and the resemblance so uncanny, even Saddam sometimes fails to recognize him, and in addition to the danger of death every time the sun rises, there are also perks. Overnight, Latif goes from filthy soldier to Brioni suits, Versace silk pajamas and Rolex watches. He also trades K-rations for lavish banquets of caviar and champagne that turn into X-rated orgies. But while enduring both the praise and punishment dished out by the dictator’s sadistic son, he also witnesses some of the most criminal atrocities known to man. Saddam Hussein had two sons who were vital cogs in his reign of terror—Uday and his younger brother Qusay, both executed in 2003— but Uday was the homicidal psychopath of the duo. During his days in Saddam’s palace Latif witnessed depravity, debauchery, immorality, genocide and worse. Every attempt to escape failed, while Uday continued to thrive with his father’s protection—kidnapping, torturing, and raping underage schoolgirls he plucked off the street, choking on cocaine and wallowing in pornographic exploits with both sexes. While American bombs get closer, he even ravages a virginal bride on her wedding day, driving the disgraced girl to suicide.

Ultimately, Latif makes the near-fatal mistake of falling for Uday’s favorite palace concubine (Ludivine Sagnier) while trying to save her. Her eventual betrayal is final proof that in Iraq, the moon is not the only harsh mistress. The film’s weakness is a choppily edited script by Michael Thomas that exploits the perversions while ignoring the politics, reducing history to a few newsreel shots of George Bush and the first Gulf War. New Zealand director Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) leaves nothing to the imagination in terms of sex and violence, but leaves everything out about the political arena where it took place. Iraq was a country in Hell. The Devil’s Double was shot at a Radisson resort in Malta. Consequently, it plays more like Caligula than The Hurt Locker.

Still, you won’t find yourself yawning. It’s a great double stretch for an actor and Mr. Cooper plays both the smoldering Latif and the bombastic Uday with combustible energy. Childish, savage and impulsive, Uday has buck teeth and combed flat hair, while Latif is more like an Oxford student on a Middle Eastern holiday. Some objections have been voiced about an Anglo-Saxon actor playing an Iraqi, but who cares? Stripped half-naked, smoking cigars, waving guns and strutting like a peacock, Mr. Cooper gives a dazzling display of self-assurance as Uday and a remarkable display of restraint as Latif. The Devil’s Double is eons removed from his 2006 breakthrough performance as a cocky prep school lothario in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, and a far cry from his usual fluff like Mamma Mia! and Captain America. Without the ballast he provides, this would be an action epic without the stature and a runaway train without the brakes.

rreed@observer.com

THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE

Running time 108 minutes

Written by Michael Thomas

Directed by Lee Tamahori

Starring Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Raad Rawi

3/4

You may be aware of a certain Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Among his less memorable accomplishments was the penning of a novel, entitled Zabibah and The King, in which the protagonist was an oppressive Iraqi ruler -- basically a stand-in for Saddam, only set in the 12th century.

Sacha Baron Cohen is going to play that oppressive Iraqi ruler.

The team from Borat and Bruno is directing, writing, and producing with Baron Cohen, and the film -- called The Dictator -- will be out May 2012.

Highlight from the super-dry press release: "The film tells the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed."

And the rest of it is below.

HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Jan. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Paramount Pictures announced today that Sacha Baron Cohen’s new comedy THE DICTATOR will be released worldwide on May 11, 2012. The studio also announced that Larry Charles (“Borat,” “Bruno”) has come aboard to direct.

 

The film tells the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed. It is inspired by the best selling novel “Zabibah and The King” by Saddam Hussein.

Producing alongside Baron Cohen are Scott Rudin, Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, and David Mandel. The project marks the first collaboration for Rudin (“The Social Network,” “True Grit”) and Baron Cohen, while Berg, Schaffer and Mandel (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) join him as screenwriters on the movie. The movie is the latest collaboration between Baron Cohen and Charles, who previously worked together on “Borat” as well as “Bruno.” Dan Mazer (“Borat,” “Bruno”), Ant Hines (“Borat,” “Bruno”) and Peter Baynham (“Borat”) will serve as executive producers, reuniting the rest of the Academy Award®-nominated and Golden Globe winning “Borat” team. Todd Schulman (“Borat,” “Bruno”) is co-producing under Baron Cohen’s Four By Two Films banner.

Click for What Twitter Taught Us: Glenn Beck Meets Bono and the World Collapses

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Ms. Winfrey posed the question to Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesperson for the Iraqi National Congress—an erstwhile group of Iraqi exiles led by Ahmed Chalabi that, at the time, was busy lobbying the American government to overthrow Saddam Hussein. “Absolutely,” responded Mr. Qanbar.

Later, Ms. Winfrey called on an audience member. “I hope this doesn’t offend you,” said the young woman. “I just don’t know what to believe with the media and…” Ms. Winfrey cut her off. “We’re not trying to show you propaganda,” Ms. Winfrey explained. “We’re just showing you what is.”

Four-and-a-half years later, with American troops embroiled in a seemingly intractable civil war in Iraq, and the reputation of Iraqi National Congress in tatters, the question of what exactly Ms. Winfrey and the rest of her colleagues in the media were showing to millions of American viewers on the eve of invasion begs a second look.

Tonight at 9:00 p.m., PBS will be airing a special episode of Bill Moyers Journal, entitled, “Buying the War,” which takes a long, hard look at the American media’s performance in the months leading up to the start of the war. The result is a detailed portrait of media groupthink gone horribly awry.

Throughout the 90 minute program, a large number of print and broadcast journalists--from Oprah, to Judith Miller, to George Will, to the Sunday morning talk show pundits, to Roger Ailes’ legions at Fox, to William Kristol, to the reporters on the evening network news, to Vanity Fair’s David Rose—are shown passing along hyperbolic stories about Iraq’s biological and nuclear weapons capacity.

As it turns out, many of those overblown stories relied almost exclusively on the false claims of hawkish administration officials and dodgy Iraqi defectors. Claims that often went unchecked by some of the best minds in the business.

There were exceptions, and throughout “Buying the War,” Mr. Moyers gives plenty of airtime to the reporters who got the story right, particularly to John Walcott, Jonathan Landay, and Warren Strobel of the erstwhile Knight Ridder news service.

The show also features captivating interviews with 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus, and an apologetic Dan Rather.

“Especially right after 9/11, especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on, there was a real sense that you don’t get that critical of a government that’s leading us in war time,” Walter Isaacson, the former chairman and CEO of CNN tells Mr. Moyers. “Big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’”

Reached by phone on Monday, Kathleen Hughes, the producer of “Buying the War,” said that the documentary has been a year in the making. “Bill has called this a historical documentary except the history is only four years ago,” said Ms. Hughes.

“By and large most of us in the media accepted the administration’s point of view,” said Ms. Hughes. “I think that had to do with what some of our reporters say in the show--that there seemed to be an almost bipartisan belief that Saddam Hussein was keeping a big arsenal and that we had to be worried about him. But when you look at the Knight Ridder reporting you begin to understand that there was plenty of detailed, accurate information available in real time. That was the biggest surprise.”

Did the largely unflattering portrayal of the press leave Ms. Hughes feeling depressed about her profession?

“No,” said Ms. Hughes. “I still have a tremendous amount of respect for journalists. We all have our good work and our not so good work. I still think it’s a noble profession. Just look at the Knight Ridder guys. In this case, they’re my heroes.”

“It comes from the most sensitive sources and methods that we have as a government. It’s the family jewels.”—May 19, 2002, explaining why the Aug. 6, 2001, Daily Presidential Brief, titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” should not be made public.

“There wasn’t anything really new in it. It was one more sort of rehash, if you will, of the material that was out there.”

—May 19, 2002, same interview.

Weapons Inspectors

“A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of compliance with U.N. resolutions. On the contrary, there is a great danger it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow ‘back in his box.’”—Aug. 26, 2002.

“We will not hesitate to discredit you.”

—Fall 2002, to UNMOVIC head Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei, before the start of U.N. arms inspections.

“Mr. ElBaradei is, frankly, wrong.”

—March 16, 2003, disputing the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report to the U.N. Security Council that Iraq did not attempt to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger and that documents stipulating otherwise were forged.

Who’s to Blame for Being Wrong

“That was George Tenet’s testimony, the director of the C.I.A., in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

—Sept. 10, 2006, after the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report puts the Saddam–Al Qaeda claims to final rest.

The Press

“The press, with all due respect, [is] oftentimes lazy, oftentimes simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework.”—June 17, 2004, explaining why reporters didn’t write articles supporting claims of a relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda..

Victory Is Just Around the Corner

“I think it’s important not to let anecdotal reporting on individual resistance conflicts somehow color or lead us to make misjudgments about the total scope of the effort.”—Sept. 14, 2003.

“I don’t think there was a serious misjudgment here.”—Sept. 14, 2003, denying any underestimation of the number of troops required to secure Iraq.

“We’re moving in the right direction.”—Aug. 24, 2004

“I believe they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”—May 30, 2005.

“There is no doubt in my mind but we are going to win …. We are winning …. The evidence is there for anybody who wants to look at it.”—June 22, 2006.

“When we look back on this period of time 10 years from now … 2005 will have been the turning point, because that’s the point at which the Iraqis stepped up and established their own political process, wrote a constitution, held three national elections and basically took on the responsibility for their own fate and their future.”—Sept. 10, 2006, two weeks after the Defense Intelligence Agency reports that the “2005 elections appeared to heighten sectarian tensions and polarize sectarian divides.”

“Well, I look at it and see it as actually an affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well.”—Feb. 21, 2007, commenting on Britain’s decision to begin withdrawing its troops from the Basra area, listed by the Pentagon as one of only two regions “not ready for transition” to Iraqi authorities.

What’s in Store for Doubters

“Once we have victory in Baghdad, all the critics will look like fools.”

—Summer 2002, to a senior British official.

Hunting Osama

“What we are going to do is aggressively go after Mr. bin Laden”—Sept. 16, 2001.

“Bin Laden has been a top priority for us from the beginning. There has been no lessening of our interest or activity.”—Sept. 10, 2006, after the reported closing of the C.I.A.’s bin Laden task force.

“You know, I don’t have the street address.”—June 24, 2005

The United Nations

“Go tell them it’s not about us. ‘It’s about you. You are not important.’”—August 14, 2002, recommending what President George W. Bush should say in his upcoming address on Iraq to the United Nations General Assembly.

“We’d like to [move against Iraq] with the sanction of the international community.”

—Sept. 14, 2002, midway through a six-week campaign urging Bush not to seek U.N. approval.

Good Times, Bad Times

“There’s a story in The New York Times this morning—and I want to attribute The Times. I don’t want to talk about, obviously, specific intelligence sources, but it’s now public that, in fact, he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel, the kinds of [aluminum] tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. And the centrifuge is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium, which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb.”

—Sept. 8, 2002, citing an article containing information that Cheney ordered leaked to The Times.

“What The New York Times did today was outrageous.”—June 14, 2004, attacking the newspaper’s “irresponsible … possibly malicious” report that the 9/11 Commission found no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

The Saddam Threat

“Saddam Hussein’s bottled up at this point.”

—Sept. 16, 2001.

“There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”

—Aug. 26, 2002, 11 months later.

The Economy

“Deficits don’t matter.”

—June 2002, dismissing Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s warnings of tax cuts causing massive budget deficits.

“I am a deficit hawk.”

—Sept. 14, 2003, after the Office of Management and Budget reports a $374 billion budget deficit for the fiscal year.

National Energy Task Force

“Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”

—April 30, 2001, defending his National Energy Task Force’s call for building one new power plant a week for the next 20 years.

“If you want to do brain surgery, you go get a brain surgeon.”

—May 4, 2001, explaining why his National Energy Task Force met with oil-, gas- and power-industry executives 117 times, and representatives from environmentalist groups just once.

Scootergate

“Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an amb[assador] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?”—July 6, 2003, note to Scooter Libby scrawled atop the New York Times Op-Ed article, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” by Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, husband of C.I.A. covert operative Valerie Plame.

“Well, let me see. I’m trying to think of how to describe this without crossing over the line and violating my own deeply held convictions that you shouldn’t talk about classified information.”—May 19, 2002, 10 months before telling Libby to leak misleading portions of a secret National Intelligence Estimate to The New York Times.

“I’m going to respectfully decline to talk about that.”

—Dec. 18, 2005, refusing to say when he first heard the name Valerie Plame.

“It would be totally inappropriate for me to comment, period.”—Dec. 18, 2005, refusing to say whether he directed anyone to lie to a federal grand jury about leaking Valerie Plame’s status as a covert agent.

“I’ve said all I’m going to say on the subject.”

—September 10, 2006, refusing to say whether he had the authority to declassify information on Valerie Plame’s status as a C.I.A. covert operative.

“I am very disappointed.”—March 6, 2007, after a jury finds Libby guilty on four felony counts. and near-drowning.

The Environment

“I’m one of those who believes very strongly in the market, and I think we have to be very careful not to pass artificial, unfair standards that sound nice.”

—June 19, 2001, assuring General Motors executives that there will be no increase in fuel-efficiency standards.

“If you want to do something about carbon-dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear-power plants.”

—March 21, 2001.

9/11

“There’ll be, I’m sure, a lot of sort of Monday morning quarterbacking, second-guessing, if you will.”—Sept. 16, 2001.

“We received a threat to Air Force One—came through the Secret Service …. I talked to the President, urged him to stay away for now …. I mean, it was such a clear-cut case, in my estimation.”

—Sept. 16, 2001, 35 months before the 9/11 Commission finds no evidence of any threat to Air Force One.

“It must have something to do with his background, his own upbringing.”

—Sept. 16, 2001, on Osama bin Laden’s motives.

Enron

“Ken’s been a friend. I was once involved doing a baseball stadium for Ken.”

—May 17, 2001, commenting on press revelations of his confidential, one-on-one meeting with Enron C.E.O. Ken Lay during the creation of national energy policy.

“Price caps provide short-term relief for politicians, but they do nothing to deal with the basic, fundamental problem.”

—April 18, 2001, during the California energy crisis, one day after Ken Lay hands him a memo stating that the administration “should reject any attempt to re-regulate wholesale power markets by adopting price caps.”

“The fact is, Enron didn’t get any special deals.”—Jan. 27, 2002, nine months after the Energy Task Force recommends that the President direct the Secretaries of State and Energy to work on natural-gas matters with India—which Enron was suing for $5 billion after the Indian government shut down a $2.9 billion power station fueled by natural gas.

Katrina

“Everybody I’ve met with is … upbeat.”

—Sept. 8, 2005, touring the Katrina-devastated Mississippi Gulf Coast, two days before the removal of FEMA head Michael Brown.

Looking Out for Terrorists

“The threat to the continental United States and our infrastructure is changing and evolving, and we need to look at this whole area oftentimes referred to as homeland defense.”

—May 8, 2001, upon the announcement that he will lead the White House Task Force on Terrorism.

“The administration wasn’t yet ready to take a position on how we ought to organize for homeland defense.”

—May 22, 2002, explaining why the terrorism task force had yet to meet when World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked.

“We’re not in the habit of reading the raw intelligence reports from the FBI. There aren’t enough hours in the day for us to do all of that.”—May 19, 2002, on his lack of knowledge regarding F.B.I. warnings of suspicious Middle Eastern men taking lessons to fly large airliners.

Saddam’s Nukes

“Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.”

—Aug. 26, 2002.

“We’ve gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors, including Saddam’s own son-in-law.”—Aug. 26, 2002, referring to Iraq nuclear-weapons program head Hussein Kamel al-Majid, who actually told C.I.A. interrogators that Iraq had destroyed “all weapons, biological, chemical, missile, nuclear” in 1991—four years before his defection.

“Now.”

—Aug. 26, 2002, describing the freshness of the information obtained from al-Majid—six years after his return to Iraq and subsequent execution.

“We do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build nuclear weapons … specifically aluminum tubes.”

—Sept. 8, 2002, citing information from an Iraqi defector who was branded a fabricator by U.S. and British intelligence.

“We now have irrefutable evidence.”

—Sept. 20, 2002, referring to “nuclear use” aluminum tubes, composed of the same material used in the U.S. Air Force’s air-to-ground rocket tubes.

“We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

—March 16, 2003.

“I did misspeak …. We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon.”

—Sept. 14, 2003, six months after the U.S. invades Iraq.

Saddam’s Links With al Qaeda

“There’s overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.”—Jan. 22, 2003, after the Defense Intelligence Agency reports “evidence of direct cooperation between government of Iraq and al Qaeda has not been established.”

“You ought to go look at an article that Stephen Hayes did in The Weekly Standard …. That’s your best source of information.”—Jan. 9, 2004, referring to alleged evidence on the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda based on a leaked Douglas Feith memo, which the Department of Defense describes as “inaccurate,” “nothing new” and “not an analysis.”

“[Saddam] also had an established relationship with Al Qaeda, providing training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons, gases, making conventional bombs.”—Oct. 10, 2003, citing information extracted from a captured Al Qaeda operative after torture.

“It’s clearly established in terms of training, provision of bomb-making experts, training of people with respect to chemical and biological warfare capabilities, that Al Qaeda sent personnel to Iraq for training and so forth.”—June 4, 2004, six months after a special C.I.A. assessment ordered by Cheney finds no truth to the charge, the tortured Al Qaeda operative recants his claims, and the C.I.A. withdraws 153 intelligence reports based on his information.

“In the early 1990’s, Saddam had sent a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service to Sudan to train Al Qaeda in bomb-making and document forgery.”—July 1, 2004, claim found false by the 9/11 Commission, the C.I.A. and the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“There was a relationship. It’s been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming. It goes back to the early 90’s …. There’s clearly been a relationship.”—June 17, 2004, two and a half years after the C.I.A. reports that there wasn’t.

“I continue to believe—I think there’s overwhelming evidence—that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I’m very confident that there was an established relationship there.”—Jan. 21, 2005, six months after the 9/11 Commission seconds the C.I.A.

Iraq and 9/11

“No.”—Sept. 16, 2001, on whether there is any evidence linking Iraq to 9/11.

“It’s been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.”—Dec. 9, 2001, referring to lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, who was in Florida that April, according to an exhaustive investigation by the F.B.I.

“It’s credible.”—Sept. 8, 2002, describing the C.I.A.’s assessment of Atta’s alleged Prague trip, nine months after C.I.A. director George Tenet tells him that the story “doesn’t add up.”

“[Iraq is] the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.”—September 14, 2003.

“We never said that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. We never said that. You can’t find any place where I said it.”—June 17, 2004.

“No, I never said that …. I never said that …. Absolutely not.”—June 17, 2004, denying having said that Atta’s trip to Prague was “pretty well confirmed.”

“The Senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11.”—Oct. 5, 2004, rebutting John Edwards during the Vice Presidential debate.

How the War Will Go

“I don’t think it would be that tough a fight.”

—September 8, 2002.

“It will go relatively quickly … weeks rather than months.”

—March 16, 2003, three days before the U.S. invasion.

“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”

—March 16, 2003.

Halliburton

We’ve not done any business in Iraq since the sanctions were imposed—and I had a standing policy that I wouldn’t do that.”

—Aug. 6, 2000, nine months before the disclosure of Halliburton sales to Iraq of $73 million in oil-production equipment and spare parts while Cheney was C.E.O.

“I’m not a direct party to it.”

—Sept. 8, 2002, declining to answer questions about the S.E.C.’s investigation of illegal accounting changes by Halliburton while he was C.E.O.—before his successor tells Newsweek that the Vice President was fully aware of them.

“I have totally divested myself of all of my outside financial interests—at considerable cost to myself—in order to be able to come in and function in this capacity and be free of any allegations of conflicts of any kind.”

—May 4, 2001, prior to filing a 2001 federal income-tax return listing $205,298 in deferred Halliburton income.

“I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government.”—Sept. 14, 2003, 13 months before the publication of a March 5, 2003, internal Pentagon e-mail stating that “action” on a no-bid $7.5 billion Halliburton contract in Iraq was “coordinated” with the Vice President’s office by Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, acting on the authorization of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

American Popularity in Iraq

“I would chalk that one up as a miscalculation.”—Jan. 20, 2005, characterizing his own prewar estimate of the fighting lasting “weeks rather than months.”

“If you look at what the dictionary says about ‘throes,’ it can still be a violent period.”—June 23, 2005, clarifying his remark about the insurgency’s “last throes.”

“Well, you can’t anticipate everything.”—Feb. 7, 2006, accounting for the Bush administration’s failure to plan for the insurgency.

Minding Manners

“We take seriously the responsibility to be civil.”

—Feb. 15, 2001.

“Go fuck yourself.”

—June 24, 2004, to Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

How the Detainees Are Faring

“They’re very well-treated down there. They’re living in the tropics.”—June 24, 2005, describing conditions at Guantánamo detention facility.

“Now, you can get into a debate about what shocks the conscience and what is cruel and inhuman. And to some extent, I suppose, that’s in the eye of the beholder.”

—Dec. 18, 2005.

Here are Bill Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan (in The War Over Iraq, 2003):

Then there's Kenneth Pollack, in The Threatening Storm (the liberals' manifesto for invasion), arguing that urban Iraq is way past such differences:

Then there's David Wurmser, Cheney's brainy adviser, arguing (in Tyranny's Ally, 1999, published by the visionary American Enterprise Institute with support by Irving Moskowitz, who backs expansion of settlements in the West Bank) that liberating the Shi'ites would bring a modern, liberalizing spirit to the whole region, notably Iran:

I can offer only one comment on all this. Genius!

Yet his voice remains. As John F. Burns reported in The New York Times, the court where the trial of Saddam’s co-defendants goes on heard a recording of the dead man himself, discussing the good points of chemical attacks. (Poor Saddam—Nixon could have warned him: Just turn the damn tape recorder off.) “They’re very effective if people don’t wear masks.” “You mean they will kill thousands?” a minion asks. “Yes, they will kill thousands.” Hundreds of thousands, it turned out, by chemicals, bullets in the night, or the ordinary wear and tear of torture. It is possible that not even now is the daily death rate in Iraq higher than it was under the peace of Saddam Hussein, which was the peace of the tomb.

What has changed since our invasion in 2003 is that the monopoly of violence was broken up and replaced by a free market of evil actors. When we leave, if we leave in defeat, the violence will become much worse. We speak of the country splitting into three, Shiite, Sunni and Kurd, but partition is never easy. Ask Israel and the Palestinian Authority, or India and Pakistan. Ask the Confederate States of America. Breaking up is hard to do.

So President Bush, confronted with the tactical failure of the war, proposed new tactics. The news peg was the surge of 21,500 additional troops. Equally important will be rules of engagement that permit them to fight first and politick later. Before now, Mr. Bush said, “there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have …. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light” to do what they have to do, “ … and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.” (It would be nice to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation.) The third equally important element may be the willingness to shut down terrorists and weapons coming from Syria and Iran. The day after Mr. Bush spoke, American troops raided an Iranian visa office in the northern city of Irbil, no doubt on the hunch that it arranged more than package tours to scenic Persepolis. The only W.M.D. Saddam got to use were lowly chemicals; the mullahs want the big bang. We will have to reckon with them soon; we might as well warm up now. In this regard, it is noteworthy that Gen. John Abizaid’s replacement at Central Command is Adm. William J. Fallon. If you expect to choke the Strait of Hormuz, go directly to the relevant service.

It is possible that there is yet another secret component to Mr. Bush’s strategy—secret perhaps even from himself. Could his hidden allies be Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and Jack Murtha—the Democratic leadership, and the bug-out true believers at their left hands? I am neither a scholar nor a traveler, but I have bought rugs from Turks, Berbers and Arabs, and in every shop the pattern was the same: After all the viewing and little white lies and tactical nitpicking and glasses of mint tea, you only make the deal when you’re out the door. Not pretend out-the-door, but the-heck-with-it-I’ll-go-to-the-next-place out-the-door. Then comes the handshake. Is it necessarily a bad thing that the larger half of America’s elite and the voters who support it are out the door already? Of course, Congress may take direct control of the war power, as it did at the end of the Vietnam War. As the 20th-century scholar E.S. Corwin wrote, the Constitution “is an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.” Then it will be every Iraqi for himself.

In the casualties to come, from the brave men and women in uniform to basically everybody, if the bottom falls out, it is unseemly to speak of an idea, but let me risk it. President Bush’s second inaugural, and especially one sentence in it—“Eventually the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul”—was hammered by multiculturalists, paleocons and hard-headed supporters of Mr. Bush himself. They’re having a field day now. Mr. Bush told only part of the truth, and partial truths can be more dangerous than lies. But that does not drain them of the truth they do tell, which we should recover before consigning Muslims to wogdom and their world to friendly or unfriendly jailers.

The blood that flows in Iraq is not flowing from the Volk; it flows because of human nature, but it is not even yet flowing from local humanity as a whole. Specific actors, with specific goals, make it flow. They want power, and the money that comes from power, and they are willing to spend money and lives to get it. If they kill enough people along the way, then every man’s hand will be raised against every other man—and so would yours, in a similar nightmare. But most people most of the time want their daily bread, something for their children, and not to be beaten up by cops, goons or people who won’t let them shave their beards. Let’s kill as many bad actors as we can.

"we are betting" Mexican-Americans will "think Mexico first"

If the United States accepts the principle that it is legitimate for foreign-born citizens (or, worse, for their American-born children) to maintain political allegiance to the foreign state from which they emigrated, we have accepted a racial-ethnic definition of citizenship that makes a mockery of our 200-year old immigration ideal.
In effect, Americans would have accepted the old Germanic concept of das Volk (or Latinized, its Spanish equivalent of La Raza) in which the "race" trumps citizenship.

It means dual citizens are, in effect, privileged "supra-citizens" because unlike other Americans they have voting power in more than one state and are loyal to more than one constitution. sanctions would serve two purposes: (1) to discourage the practice, and (2) to remind everyone (Americans and the rest of the world alike) we are serious about the Oath of Allegiance and about our traditional ideal of political rather than racial or ethnic citizenship.

Singer has argued that it was important for the U.S. to remove Saddam because "some of the scholars with the deepest understanding of Muslim history and culture, is to compel the Arab governments to act against terrorism and stay away from WMD by making them afraid of what will happen to them if they fail to do so."

Instead, his hurried hanging at dawn by a gang of masked guards in leather jackets was all too reminiscent of the lawless carnage routinely carried out in the old Baathist regime’s prison cells. Indeed, the ugly event took place on the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, as celebrated by the Sunnis, in the same building where Saddam’s secret police used to string up his political opponents. Among the many things that have not improved much in Iraq since the U.S. invasion is the administration of criminal justice.

Intentionally or ineptly, the Bush administration permitted this embarrassment to be perpetrated in the name of the American people. The President contributed his own special combination of false and foolish commentary when he released a statement praising the execution as the result of “a fair trial.”

What Mr. Bush means when he utters those words is unclear. Spoken by him, such rhetorical phrases are devoid of their historical meaning in American and international law. It is very unlikely that the President actually knows whether Saddam received due process, and even less likely that he cares. He may well have received the customary reassurances from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who always made certain that his brief deliberations on executions as Texas governor were free of confusing facts, wholly predetermined and, oh yes, “fair.”

For those who do care about the reputation of American justice as well as the prospects for a civilized future in Iraq, the way that Saddam met his end was not uplifting. After decades of totalitarian rule, there were few qualified Iraqi jurists available to deal properly with the massive docket of crimes committed by the Baathist government. Human Rights Watch—which exposed Saddam’s abuses back when he was still being coddled by Republican politicians—urged the creation of a competent tribunal that included both Iraqi and international judges. But the Bush administration disdains all international institutions, so that wise proposal was dismissed.

The Iraqi High Tribunal, set up and operated with U.S. assistance, was unable to run the court with any semblance of impartiality or independence during the trial of Saddam and his co-defendants for mass killings in the town of Dujail. According to a November 2006 report by Human Rights Watch, the defense attorneys had no reliable means to submit evidence and motions, or even to receive accreditation to represent their clients. The court was unable to keep track of submitted documents—and copies of the investigative dossier that formed the main body of prosecution evidence, as provided to defense counsel, were largely illegible.

No security measures were taken to protect the defense lawyers before the Dujail trial, so several of them were promptly murdered as soon as it began. Those who survived were unable to effectively question prosecution witnesses. Meanwhile, prosecutors acted as public spokesmen for the tribunal, casting doubt on its fairness, as did constant prejudicial comments and announcements emanating from the Iraqi national-security advisor.

The kangaroo-court proceedings concluded in late December with a mockery of the right to appeal. With only 30 days to prepare and argue their case against the predetermined verdict, the defense lawyers didn’t receive the 300-page guilty opinion until more than halfway through that period. They had less than two weeks to respond.

When the appeal was denied on Dec. 26, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, described as “frantic” to see his enemy executed, signed a death warrant of dubious legitimacy in violation of Iraqi law. On a secretly recorded video, the hanging looks and sounds much like an old-fashioned lynching. The noose is fitted and the trap door springs while a jeering mob screams “Muqtada! Muqtada!” in homage to Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite warlord.

They don’t even do a fair trial that way in Texas anymore.

Despite late and feeble protestations by American officials—who supposedly tried to postpone the execution because of concerns about its legality—suspicions abound that the Bush administration wanted this travesty to unfold exactly as it did. Saddam was a dangerous man until the very end, who might someday have squealed on his longtime benefactors in the C.I.A. and the Reagan administration. As for Mr. Bush, always simple-minded and bloody-minded, he probably believes that executing Saddam will somehow adorn his discreditable legacy.

It won’t, because the hanging of Saddam was not only a judicial miscarriage, but a strategic blunder. While he was in American custody, the U.S. could have wielded a powerful incentive to urge the Shiite-dominated governing coalition toward serious negotiation with the Sunni rebels. Squandering that opportunity while dishonoring decent standards was worse than venal. It was stupid.

He is, after all, a confirmed believer in the democratizing doctrine of American neo­con­servatism, a proponent of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein back when even George W. Bush was pooh-poohing the concept of “nation-building.”

But it’s not a stretch to see political motives in the former prisoner of war’s positioning on Iraq.

Consider the chief lesson that Mr. McCain seems to have learned from his 2000 White House bid, when his maverick credentials certified him as the most popular politician in the United States but doomed him in the primary.

He responded to his loss first by further distancing himself from the Bush G.O.P., voting against the new President’s tax cut program and stoking chatter that a third-party Presidential campaign was in his future—a path once chosen by his hero, Theodore Roosevelt.

Then Mr. McCain abruptly shifted gears, throwing himself into Mr. Bush’s 2004 re-election effort and serving notice that he would run as a Republican in 2008. Hence this spring’s previously unthinkable pilgrimage to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, or Mr. McCain’s straight-faced endorsement of the teaching of “intelligent design.”

“Are you freaking out on us?” an incredulous Jon Stewart asked Mr. McCain when he appeared on The Daily Show in April, the kind of exercised inquiry—“Wait a minute. You’re really a conservative?!”—for which Mr. McCain was no doubt secretly thankful.

For all of his awkward bridgework, though, the right remains staunchly unwilling to brook many more of Mr. McCain’s famous apostasies, a reality of which the Arizonan was reminded this past September, when he and two other Republican Senators objected to the Bush administration’s bid to redefine the Geneva Conventions to allow for coercive interrogations of suspected terrorists.

The impasse reunited Mr. McCain with his 2000 cheering section: moderate Republicans, independent pundits, editorial boards and basically the majority of the American public. But it ran flatly counter to his base-centric ’08 game plan, creating an opening to his right into which Massachusetts Governor W. (Mitt) Romney was only too happy to step.

And so, as the editorially conservative Manchester Union-Leader—the largest newspaper in the first-in-the-nation primary state—pilloried Mr. McCain on its front page three months ago, Mr. Romney inserted himself into the debate, suggesting that the Arizonan was soft on terrorists and had made “a big mistake.” The dust-up served as a watershed for Mr. Romney’s upstart effort.

Ironically, Mr. Romney’s own conservative credentials—he used to present himself as pro-choice and unafraid of promoting gay rights—are probably more suspect than Mr. McCain’s. But for now at least, he has emerged as the chief beneficiary of the considerable distrust that lingers between the Republican base and Mr. McCain. Simply put, then, Mr. McCain’s ability to keep Mr. Romney in check is directly related to his ability to prevent flare-ups like September’s.

Which brings us to the present debate over Iraq, its parameters redefined by the bipartisan study group’s suggestion that it’s time to begin bringing our combat forces home.

For Mr. McCain, the fault lines are eerily familiar. His old allies—again, the majority of Americans—have their fingers crossed, hoping the President’s obstinacy will at last wilt. But a shrill minority of voices on the right—the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys who led the intra-party assault on Mr. McCain in 2000—feel threatened by the commission and have viciously turned their guns on its members and their proposals.

This time, Mr. McCain is standing squarely with the Limbaugh crowd. Maybe it’s because he genuinely agrees with them. Or maybe it’s just that he has learned a political lesson about what happens when you don’t.