Sticklers for "international support"

If only this were just a joke.

Negotiations resumed Friday morning. In Phoenix, 10 time zones away, General Casey was monitoring the exchanges in signals traffic from Baghdad. American military officials remained opposed to an immediate hanging, telling Mr. Maliki that beyond the legal issues, there was a question of his government’s need to gain international support by carrying out the hanging in a way that could withstand any criticism.

“We said, ‘You have to do it by international law, you have to do it in accordance with international standards of decorum, you have to establish yourselves as a nation under law,’ ” an American official recounted. When Mr. Maliki said the Americans should respect Iraq’s right to decide matters for itself, American officials said, one of the Americans said: “Forget about us. You’re in front of the international community here. People will be watching this.”

Wish we'd thought.

Oh, and the ultimate "workaround:" the Bush administration.

Senior Bush administration officials in Washington said that Mr. Khalilzad’s principal contact in Washington was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and that she gave the green light for Mr. Hussein to be turned over, despite the reservations of the military commanders in Baghdad. One official said that Ms. Rice was supported in that view by Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser.

“It literally came down to the Iraqis interpreting their law, and our looking at their law and interpreting it differently,” the official said. “Finally, it was decided we are not the court of last appeal for Iraqi law here. The president of their country says it meets their procedures. We are not going to be their legal nannies.”

Condoleezza "Green Light" Rice. Stephen "I smell gas. Gotta match?" Hadley.