Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Great. The US occupation forces in Iraq are using Saddam's old secret police to help root out the resistance:

U.S.-led occupation authorities have begun a covert campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to American forces here after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Things under the US are beginning to look awfully like things under Saddam. The American viceroy rules from one of Saddam's palaces, protected from the people by an army of special forces bodyguards. People are "disappeared" in the dead of night, held without trial, and beaten. And now, even the faces will be the same. All it needs is for Paul Bremer to grow a silly moustache, and the transformation will be complete.

And this is supposed to be their "model of democracy" for the Middle East?