This is the Iraqi government we created and want to protect

Leila Fadel, Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, points to the horror of American troops finding 24 special needs Iraqi orphans chained, naked and starving, in their own excrement in cribs in a government orphanage. The orphans were rescued by American troops who conducted a 2 a.m. raid on the orphanage.

The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Mahmoud al Sheikh Radhi, was reported by Iraqi state television to be extremely irate -- at the American soldier who "slandered Iraqi children."

"I believe that those who conducted this raid deserve to be tried," he was quoted in Iraqi news outlets as saying. "Can a reasonable person accept horrifying these sons and putting terror into their souls at such a late time."

He said the boys were naked because of the summer heat. He didn't explain why they had been beaten and starved.

In an interview with state television Ahmed, one of the little boys, tells a reporter that he was beaten and stripped.

"Majed is a dog. He hit me with a stick," he tells the reporter, referring to one of his caretakers. "We didn't do anything. He hit me in my heart, hit me in my heart with a stick."

Yep. Those soldier should be tried. Yeah, sure.

This is a government that can't form an effective Army to protect itself, and the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs is angry because the America soldiers rescued 24 mistreated orphans?

I guess I can see why such news reports would make the Minister angry. They do confirm that there is nothing in Iraq worth spending American lives to try to save.

[Earlier report on the Iraqi orphans with link to transcript from CBS News.]