Bolton must really be going through the heebie-jeebies today, what with a U.N. special investigative panel looking into our penal practices in the conquered province of Iraq. As U.N. Representative Staffan de Mistura noted today, "There is no secret that the (Iraqi) prisons are overcrowded and frankly not in very good condition."

The Associated Press reports he cited one example of a prison in which 123 detainees were crammed into a 540-square-foot cell, and that reports of widespread mistreatment and torture of detainees also continue and need more thorough investigation.

"So far we have not seen one case of prosecution," he said.

The subject of American torture in Iraq first erupted in early 2004, with revelations of abuses in Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison. In intervening years there have been reports of Iraqi security services operating secret detention centers that conduct summary executions, turning Iraq into a virtual "snuff state."

De Mistura warned that the issue of detainees will be a major challenge as the United States prepares to turn over control of thousands of inmates in its custody under protocols of a security pact that was approved by Iraq's parliament; the agreement is expected to be ratified by the three-member presidential council.

As more and more details of the "don't let the screen door hit you in the ass" kiss-off from the Maliki government, it looks like it's flare-out time for American-Israeli dreams of a pacified Mideast pumping oil under a Western military-industrial consortium - prosperous goodwill wrapped in a mailed fist.

As former CIA officer Philip Giraldi notes this week in his Antiwar.com blog:

Leaks of the Arabic version and the horse-trading that preceded the ratification suggest that the final agreement was something less than a triumph for the Bush White House... American troops will be gone from Iraq's cities by June 2009 and completely gone from the country by the end of 2011. The four major military bases envisioned to maintain a long-term American presence will never materialize, and the huge embassy on the banks of the Tigris will serve more as a mausoleum to American ambitions than as a seat of power for a U.S. viceroy.

Empasizing the absolute antipathy of the Iraqi "man on the street" toward the American occupation, Giraldi points out "... there was virtually no interest in permitting either the open-ended U.S. military commitment or the immunity for American forces Washington demanded. U.S. forces reportedly can no longer detain Iraqi citizens, and both soldiers and contractors will be subject to Iraqi courts for serious crimes. American troops will be gone from Iraq's cities by June 2009 and completely gone from the country by the end of 2011."

And from the perspective of all the region's "Arabs on the street" - moderate or not - it'll be "good riddance".

Maybe the big rush to get out of Iraq has less to do with Bush trying to sweeten the close of his scabrous Administration than it does with the fact that his eight years of misrule have left us morally and economically bankrupt. We can't make the earth stand still because we don't pack the wad for such a delusional project. And now, the world knows it.