Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

A Sunni Arab politician, Mohammed al-Mishehdani of the Sunni-led National Council for National Dialogue, said simple cases of torture reported in the past were never solved so he had few expectations for this investigation, especially since a general election is due in two weeks.

"We think that the government is not serious in this matter because it does not want to be dragged into controversy while the elections are looming," he said.

Naturally, both the Bush administration and the Iraqi government want to keep the results of the investigation hush-hush.  From day one of the torture revelations, the Iraqi government settled on a policy of "dismiss and distract."  The man who fired Al Nouri, Iraq's Interior Minister, was the loudest voice on the airwaves downplaying claims of abuse:

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said last month that the reports have been exaggerated and insisted only five people in the Baghdad facility appeared to have been maltreated.

It is possible that al Nouri is the first person fired with connection to the probe, and if so, it would indicate that the Iraqi government truly is rotting from the inside.  The Interior Ministry is the core of the Iraqi government, and it has been infiltrated by terrorists and Saddam loyalists.  Indeed, the Interior Minister himself who fired al Nouri is a former Badr Brigade commander.  (The Badr Brigade is the armed wing of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and is the group allegedly rounding up, torturing, and killing Sunni Arabs in Iraq. Iran is also charged with supporting this milita. For more info, see here.)

So what to make of this firing? To me, it seems like a perfunctory measure undertaken to pacify the international community that the probe is ongoing.  In reality, it signals that Saddam loyalists, insurgents, terorrists--whatever we're calling them today--have hijacked the highest offices of trust in the Iraqi government.  Well, there goes one aspect of Bush's "Plan for Victory":

Progress in the political process -- meeting political benchmarks -- will provide momentum against the insurgency and indicate to people "on the fence" that the old regime has passed and that the effort to build a new Iraq will succeed. [...]

[W]e and our Iraqi partners continue to face multiple challenges in the political sphere, including:  Nurturing a culture of reconciliation, human rights, and transparency in a society scarred by three decades of arbitrary violence and rampant corruption;

So the plan is for a culture of "human rights" and "transparency", and the reality is that the top guy for human rights in Iraq has just been fired, with no explanation or transparency whatsoever, while the probe into torture of Sunnis remains stalled.

Mission accomplished, Bush-style.