A follow-up to the earlier post about the arrest warrants sworn out against Ahmed Chalabi (for counterfeiting) and Salem Chalabi (for murder).

This article from a few days ago in the LA Times has more details on the circumstances of the murder in question and why the prosecutor was looking at the younger Chalabi as a potential suspect.

Another thing occurs to me though. As much as I think the elder Chalabi is a bad actor in this entire sorry tale -- and perhaps the younger one too, it's impossible to ignore that this new Iraqi government -- presiding over a slow-motion civil war, wracked by assassinations, headed up by a would-be strong-man -- inspires little confidence that its judicial actions are separate in any way from the rest of the hardball politics being played out in that country.

Of course, this creates an odd bind for the Chalabites who, to fish Chalabi's reputation out of this soup, must, of necessity, tag the new Iraqi government as a dictatorship in the making with no respect for the rule of law.