I don't want to make too big of a deal out of this, but it strikes me that Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's human rights minister, may be focusing on the wrong aspects of Saddam's past:

"[Saddam] is looking after a few bushes and shrubs and has even placed a circle of white stones around a small palm tree," said Mr Amin, a Kurd from Kirkuk, who is the first member of Iraq's new interim government to visit Saddam. "His apparent care for his surroundings is ironic when you think he was responsible for one of the biggest ecocides when he drained the southern marshes."

First and foremost, I think that Saddam's history as one who commited numerous acts of genocide is much more relevant. But I'm willing to give Mr. Amin the benefit of the doubt on this one and chalk the inclusion of this phrase up to selective media reporting.

What I find much more disturbing is the fact that non-native English speakers are apparently under the impression that Ecocide is an actual English word. First, it isn't even in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, nor should it be, for "ecocide" is a made-up word, invented by whack-job left wingers that are trying to liken the "destruction" of an environment to a mass extinction or genocide of people. The term in and of itself is more inaccurate and disrespectful than I have words to describe; if you have trouble understanding that, just try explaining to a Holocaust survivor that draining a marsh causes the cattails the same amount of suffering as did the gassing of the Jews in WWII.

What, did Greenpeace get a say in picking members of the new Iraqi government?