Day: January 15, 2007

Saddam Hussein’s half brother and the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court were hanged before dawn Monday, two weeks and two days after the former Iraqi dictator was executed in a chaotic scene that has drawn worldwide criticism.

In confirming the executions, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the head of one of the accused, Barzan Ibrahim, had been severed during the hanging in what he called “a rare incident.”

President Bush concedes he isn’t popular, and that the war in Iraq isn’t either. Yes, progress is overdue and patience is all but gone. Yet none of that changes his view that more U.S. troops are needed to win in Iraq.

“I’m not going to try to be popular and change principles to do so,” Bush said in a television interview that aired Sunday night.

Digging in for confrontation, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney say they will not budge from sending more U.S. troops to Iraq no matter how much Congress opposes it.

President Bush once said he was determined to stick with the Iraq war even if his wife and his dog were the only ones left at his side.

It’s moving in that direction.

People in the United States already were angry about the war before Bush said he would try to bring unrelentingly violent Iraq back from the brink by adding 21,500 more U.S. troops to the 132,000 there now.