Moment of Truth

The double murder of the two sons of a freedom-loving Iraqi parliamentarian is presenting President Bush with a moment of truth. It involves Mithal al Alusi, an Iraqi parliamentarian who has fought for a just war against our terrorist enemies, regardless of their confessional stripe. He has helped prosecute the worst of Saddam's henchmen, he has publicly refused to take the lucre of Iran's ambassador, and he has long since decided he would not hide the fact from the Arab and American press that he attended a counter-terrorism conference in Israel.

Mr. al-Alusi has paid a price for his principles. On February 8, 2005, assassins out for him murdered his two sons, Ayman and Jamal. Mr. al-Alusi abjured doing what almost any other Iraqi politician would have done — namely, seek the killer and exact revenge. Mr. al-Alusi put his faith in Iraq's fragile justice system. There are now confidential witnesses, including testimony from some of the men involved in the killing, that implicate Iraq's minister of culture, As'ad Kemal al-Hashemi, as the individual who ordered and financed the murder.

On Monday, an Iraqi justice signed the warrant for Mr. al-Hashemi's arrest, and American GIs, on orders of General Petraeus, began to accompany the Iraqi national police to his home in Baghdad. Then, as our Eli Lake reported exclusively, General Petraeus's order was overturned in Washington, and the Iraqi police found themselves outgunned at the home of the culture minister. Mr. al-Hashemi then fled to the fortified international zone in the center of Baghdad, where he is holed up at the al-Rashid Hotel, a compound guarded by military contractors who report to America.

The contractors refused to let the police enter the hotel. So Mr. al-Alusi pleaded with our embassy in Baghdad to order them to let the police do their job. He was told by the embassy of the country that controls the roads and checkpoints of the international zone, that they would not interfere, that this was an "Iraqi affair." Nonsense. The evidence points to the fact that our policy makers are interfering in the direction of letting this wanted man go. The head of Mr. al-Hashemi's Sunni political bloc, Adnan al-Dulaimi, says a deal is being worked out now to allow Mr. al-Hashemi leave Iraq without facing his charges.

The logic — if that's the word — of such a deal would be that in the poisoned factional politics of Iraq, an arrest would look like a Shiite judge pressing a purge of a Sunni politician. The abstract "Sunnis" would thus be spared humiliation. Mr. al-Alusi has told our Eli Lake that he will send Mr. Bush a letter making an appeal to countermand the decision of Ambassador Crocker not to intervene. Mr. al-Alusi said that he met with Mr. Bush at a conference of Arab liberal democrats on June 5 in Prague, where the president asked about his wife in light of the murder of their sons.

All eyes will be on the president here. It is a moment for him to back up his noble statements with action, by ordering his diplomats and military officers to let the Iraqi police apprehend Mr. al-Hashemi. No doubt it will be controversial — and even ignite another round of violence. But democracies aren't born without labor, and legal systems gain credibility only by breasting controversy. Justice is blind for a reason. A failure here will have worse consequences than any short-term repercussions.