It’s the same old NYT storyline: If only the blundering United States had consulted the international experts, they would not have fallen under the influence of the moustache-twirling Chalabi — but they were too eager to impose the death penalty on Saddam, and now it “looks like a show trial“:

One of the best ways to repair such a damaged society is a systematic judicial investigation of the old regime’s crimes. That should be followed by a scrupulously fair trial of those found personally accountable. In the case of Iraq, where legal training and appointments had been bent for decades to the political whims of the dictatorship, that should have called for enlisting help from international legal experts and using relevant precedents in international criminal law. The Bush administration and its Iraqi allies strongly opposed that step because it would have excluded the death penalty.
Once the decision was made to rely on Iraqi lawyers and American advisers, they should have been well insulated from political pressures. Instead, the special tribunal organizing the trial has been subjected to constant manipulation and intimidation by Ahmad Chalabi, the ceaselessly conspiring