War crimes update. According to the London-based daily Al-Hayat, citing State Department spokesman Greg Sullivan, Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz is indeed on a list of Iraqi officials who may be tried for war crimes. In an earlier post based on a New York Times story, Aziz's name was not listed. One wonders whether that earlier omission had anything to do with the false rumors a few days ago that Aziz had defected.

According to Al-Hayat, three lists exist: one of 12 officials listed as "awful", a second of 40 officials listed as "dirty", and a third of 100 officials listed as "ugly" (these are translated from the Arabic, so the U.S. probably uses different, far less imaginative words).