A Pilgrim’s Digression

Iraqi Minister Says Torture Claims Were Exaggerated

Almost as if he was channeling the spirit of Dick Cheney, Interior Minister of Iraq Bayn Jabr accused critics of Iraq’s secret prisons of supporting the terrorist insurgency in a press conference today. He also accused these same “terrorist” critics of exaggerating the scale of the torture. One of the most unbelievable moments in the press conference came when Jabr accused a paralyzed Polio victim, who was incarcerated and tortured at the prison, of being paid by the insurgency to detonate roadside bombs. Thus this paralyzed terrorist must have deserved to have the flesh peeled from his body.

These are the disciples of the Bush Administration, those whom the President would have us believe are the equivalent of our beloved Founding Fathers.

This foreign entanglement diverges farther and farther from the rosy scenarios portrayed by Cheney and others back in 2003. It is time to leave Iraq for the Iraqis to sort out, as Representative Murtha said yesterday.