The Elephant in the Middle of Baghdad

This afternoon I read this, from MSNBC:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Conditions — including the use of torture — at a secret Baghdad detention facility run by the Iraqi Interior ministry were so “horrific” that some of the scores of men held there “looked like Holocaust survivors” when they were found, NBC News has learned.

..and furthur down in the article:

Interior Ministry officials acknowledged that the abused men were mostly Sunni Arabs. They said the abusers were Shiite police officers loyal to the Badr Organization militia. Hadi al-Amery, the head of the Badr Organization, denied any involvement, the New York Times reported.

I was immediately reminded of this article that I read in the Washington Post, back in August of this year:

BASRA, Iraq -- Shiite and Kurdish militias, often operating as part of Iraqi government security forces, have carried out a wave of abductions, assassinations and other acts of intimidation, consolidating their control over territory across northern and southern Iraq and deepening the country's divide along ethnic and sectarian lines, according to political leaders, families of the victims, human rights activists and Iraqi officials.

The Post article goes on to describe what I think is the most serious problem that will undermine US and Iraqi efforts to create a stable society in Iraq. The fractious nature of the social and political situation there is what will screw the pooch. While elections and constitutions look great in headlines and make for some nice phot-ops, transparent and accountable government with protection for political and social minorities are fundamental to a free society. And it doesn't count if it's only on paper. If Iraqis can't find they have more loyalty to their nation than they do to their sect, ethnic group, and/or political party, The whole business of creating a "free society" there is DOA. What they'll end up with is a nasty civil war, possibly followed by another strongman government that emerges as the only thing that can quell the instability. Then we end up right back where we started. This is the elephant sitting in the middle of Baghdad. Why aren't we talking about this?