How Not to Execute

Perhaps the "Iraqi government" should reconsider the death penalty after Saddam Hussein's half brother was decapitated as a result of his hanging. While there is no humane method of killing someone, these people can't seem to accomplish a routine execution without botching it and subsequently creating more chaos.

Many of the people who had gathered considered the decapitation of Barzan Ibrahim to be a calculated insult, another act by the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to humiliate followers of the executed former president and all his fellow Sunni Arabs. A doctor inspected the remains to assess the government's explanation that the noose inadvertently took off the head after Ibrahim dropped through the trapdoor of the scaffold.

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In many parts of Iraq, the executions set off new waves of anger and celebration along sectarian lines, though Maliki's government had gone to great pains to prevent the type of chaotic spectacle that accompanied Hussein's hanging two weeks ago, when Shiite witnesses in the execution chamber taunted Hussein.

Meanwhile, the UN is reporting that 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in 2006, a far higher number than previously reported. A slightly larger number were injured.