Law and Order

There seems to have been a complete breakdown of any semblance of law and order in Iraq. Yesterday, insurgents lay siege to one of the Iraqi government ministries and it took two hours before US and Iraqi troops repsonded to the call for help. Today, we see this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.

The savage revenge attack for Thursday's slaying of 215 people in the Shiite Sadr City slum occurred as members of the Mahdi Army militia burned four mosques, and several homes while killing an unknown number of Sunni residents in the once-mixed Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad.

Gunmen loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr began taking over the neighborhood this summer and most of its Sunni residents already had fled.