One of the sub-plots of this peculiar story appears to involve the arrest of the Iraqi National Congress soldiers discussed in this post.

Before he and his friends were hauled away in the back a U.S. military truck, the tall man in glasses said it was all a misunderstanding: They had only broken into the nice house at gunpoint because they wanted to help the United States liberate Iraq.

And at this crazy time in this dazed, dangerous city, it almost made sense.

A bizarre incident in one of Baghdad's finest residential neighborhoods Friday brought together some of the forces at work in a country caught between the fall of the old regime and the emergence of the new.

The cast of characters included Saddam Hussein loyalists who had fled for their lives; a young hustler seeking to buy a grand house on the cheap; political toughs showing their muscle; weary Baghdad residents desperate for peace, quiet and predictability; and well-intentioned U.S. troops, clueless about the political machinations whirring around them.

The break-ins and arrests also revealed some of the uncertainty over who holds property rights to what properties now that the Saddam days are over, and raised more questions about the activities of Ahmad Chalabi, a former Iraqi exile who founded a leading anti-Saddam opposition group and has powerful patrons within the U.S. Defense Department.