The general thrust of the debate, including the investigation launched by the Iraqi government, over the conduct of the hanging of Saddam Hussein has up to now missed the fundamental point and seems to be symptomatic of what has gone so badly wrong in that sorry country.

So far the issue has centred largely on the supposedly unauthorised filming of the execution with a camera phone, capturing the lurid taunting of Saddam and the ex-dictator's banter with his harassers. The images on this footage which reached the Internet contradicted the official documentation of the event, which suggested that the execution was carried out with a sense of dignity and in good order.

It is the shattering of the lie, rather than the more profound issue that Saddam's executioners failed to maintain the moral high-ground at the time of his punishment, that is of apparent concern to the Iraqi government and of most of the commentators who have emerged on American television to prattle about the event.

For instance, it was only after the emergence of the film on the Internet and the public outcry over the images portrayed that the Iraqi government ordered the investigation in the affair overseen by several of its senior officials and which the senior prosecutor, Munqith Faroun, had threatened to halt because of the bad behaviour. So far the Iraqis have arrested three security guards, including one whose mobile film is assumed to have reached the Internet. But what is instructive in all this is the concern of the Iraqi authorities, as identified by Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The authorities, according to Mr. al-Rikibi, wanted to determine the guard's motive for filming the event; whether he acted alone or was prompted and whether he failed to recognise the consequences of his action. Either way, he will pay. We suspect that had the guard's film not reach the Internet it would have been all right. After all, Mr. Faroun reported that at least two officials were also filming with mobile phones; they apparently didn't publicise theirs.

In a small way we understand the concern of the authorities in Iraq that the emergence of the film could help to widen the sectarian divide in Iraq, fuelling the passion of the Sunni minority and deepening the civil war. But perhaps the release of the film, unwittingly or not, has offered the Iraq authorities something more profound: an opportunity to reflect.

There is little doubt that there was a sense of triumphalism among Iraq's Shia majority at Saddam's execution, coupled with a sense of revenge which allowed the former president, for that brief period, to stake out the high-ground and claim the role of martyr. The behaviour, too, reinforced the perception of an ascendant position of Iraq's Shias.

Now that the world has been afforded a glimpse of the behaviour in the inner-sanctum of the al-Maliki government, perhaps Iraq's friends will advise it about the wisdom of restraint and the greater responsibility of leadership. In the sectarian battle, it is incumbent on those in power to assume the moral high ground.

Perhaps, in a perverse way, it owes a debt of gratitude to that security guard with a camera phone.