I take total guilt, because I keep going on.
Moqtada al-Sadr informed his followers that Saddam would not live to see the light of a new year. He informed Maliki, “I want Saddam turned over to me tomorrow morning.” Maliki contacted the commanding general of Task Force 134, who asked him, “Why do you want him tomorrow? We already plan to execute him on the 10th of January.” “I want him tomorrow.” “Why? Show me how you have this set up in an organized manner.” “I want him tomorrow.” The Task Force 134 detention operations commander pushed back: “No. This is going to be a fiasco.” Our State Department weighed in, influenced his military leadership, and told him directly, “You will turn him over.” The commanding general then had no choice. He turned him over, and you remember the fiasco that became. The State Department immediately backed up, and let the commanding general take all the blame. Not one person in the State Department stepped forward and said “We were the ones who ordered it to happen.”
I see an identical situation happening with Camp Ashraf, as that country is going further down. With the exception of Kurdistan, which is actually becoming very productive—they have malls there, they're developing bridges, they're developing businesses—Iraq is going severely down further and further every day. Demonstrations in Tahrir Square are being brutally suppressed, and it just keeps on going. The people themselves, even the Shias in Najaf, Nasriye, and Basrah, are now saying it was actually better under Saddam.