Iraq's new secret police

Ralph Peters wrote in New York Post We went to Iraq to overthrow a police state. Through a combination of stubbornness, naivete and noble intentions, we've replaced it with another police state - more violent, more corrupt and less accountable.

I would not call it a police state, although it certainly is more violent, more corrupt and less accountable.

As an Army officer remarked to me, Saddam's starting to look good.

Well they have not hung him yet, should we free him?

Our greatest setback in Iraq may be that country's undoing: It has proven impossible to develop an honest, nonpartisan police establishment anywhere in the country's Arab provinces.

That says something about Arabs.

The police aren't feared by criminals, but by law-abiding citizens. The secret police are back, in the form of death squads. And the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki looks perfectly happy with the situation.

I don't think he is happy with the situation, he is just too weak to risk offending Sadar; we need to tell him he must, or must turn the government over to someone who is not afraid of Sadar, or we need to tell him goodby.