Why this is an important story

AP:

The Interior Ministry said Tuesday that it had brought the first-ever charges of torture against members of the Iraqi police, who are accused of close ties to the Shiite death squads whose daily abductions and killings fuel the sectarian violence convulsing the country.

Authorities reported finding the bodies of a dozen apparent death squad victims floating in the Tigris River south of Baghdad.

Shiite death squads are generally thought to be behind such killings, hundreds of which have been recorded in Baghdad alone since the bombing of a major Shiite shrine in February ignited the explosion of sectarian revenge killings.

Some officers on the Shiite-dominated police force are accused of abetting the violence by allowing the gunmen to violate curfews and pass through checkpoints.

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While the AP and Democrats may think this is an example of what is going wrong in Iraq, it highlights an important distinction between the current situation in Iraq and Saddamite Iraq. When Saddam was in power there was no hope that those who tortured or permitted would ever be brought to justice because they were doing it for Saddam. Now just like Saddam and his recent death sentence, there is hope for justice in Iraq that did not exist before. It is this hope for justice that must be protected and nurtured in Iraq. We should not allow Democrats to return the people of Iraq to a state of hopelessness.