Liberation isn't painless

Ayad Allawi, Iraq's first Prime Minster after Saddam, has a shady past. He allegedly assassinated prisoners in cold blood and worked for the CIA. His latest comments, however, are startling:

"Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to the country's first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam's regime.

"'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' Ayad Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.'"