Meanwhile, while nobody was watching, US forces have entered Najaf, seizing the governor's palace and killing 41 Iraqis.

In yet another U-turn, Bremer has indicated the USA is once again keen to arrest al-Sadr.

'[Moqtada al-Sadr] must face Iraqi justice for the crimes of which has been accused. [He and his followers] operated outside the rule of law by conducting their own courts and prisons,' Mr Bremer said. 'This must stop. There is no room in the new Iraq for the kind of lawless self-interested behaviour we have seen in the past few weeks.'

No, he wasn't talking about US treatment of prisoners.

But just what "Iraqi justice" is he talking about? Does he mean trial by the IGC? Al-Sadr claims the IGC has no authority to issue arrest warrants and he will answer to Iraqi justice when Iraqis have control of their own country. It's hard to disagree with that logic, especially given the US occupiers' increasingly threadbare credibility.

Ordinary Iraqis regularly turn to their Muslim clerics for judgements of disputes. In the power vaccuum of the past year, it is not unexpected that a cleric of al-Sadr's stature should be assuming a role which, in most Western countries, would be handled by courts and police.