Hands-on despotism in Iraq.(Inside Report)

In the build-up to the December 1989 invasion of Panama, reports circulated in the American media that then-Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega killed several of his political enemies himself, personally dispatching each victim with a bullet to the back of the head. This detail was the finishing touch to the portrait of Noriega as a bestial tyrant worthy of being deposed at the point of U.S. bayonets. Similar accounts have been offered regarding Saddam Hussein. In both instances, those accusations are entirely plausible.

Now comes the following news out of "liberated" Iraq: "Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings." The account in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald continues: "[The witnesses say] the prisoners --handcuffed and blindfolded--were lined up against a ...