“A botched war, a botched trial, and a botched execution,” you start your leader about Saddam Hussein’s demise (“Hanging the Dictator,” January 6, 2007). How about a botched country, too? The American occupation of Iraq has been a disaster from the very beginning. It was the Americans, not the Iraqis, who could have done a better job at bringing the toppled dictator to justice. It was up to them, too, to wisely keep him alive rather than make him a martyr by letting him be snuffed in front of television cameras on a major religious holiday. It is pretty meaningless to blame the puppet for the perpetual bungling of the puppeteer. Botched everything, you should have started your account of this sordid affair.