This, from Reuters in Baghdad today:
- Three female suicide bombers killed 28 people and wounded 92 when they blew themselves up among Shi’ites walking through the streets of Baghdad on a religious pilgrimage on Monday, Iraqi police said.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk a suicide bomber killed 22 people and wounded 150 at a protest against a disputed local elections law, Iraqi health and security officials said. One security official said the bomber may also have been a woman.
The attacks mark one of the bloodiest days in Iraq in months…
At the discussions I attended Friday in Washington with a group at USIP, and also with former Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi at Carnegie, a number of those who spoke warned with great intensity that the situation in Iraq remains very difficult for Iraqis, very politically fragile, and heavy with the threat of new waves of violence. Those who did so included Charles Knight and Rend al-Rahim at USIP, and Allawi at Carnegie.
I record the latest spikes of violence with an incredibly heavy heart and no thought of schadenfreude. But they do, certainly, undercut the claims of those who have been crowing “the surge has succeeded.”
“Succeeded” for whom? Not yet at all for Iraqis, though the casualty figures among US troops are sharply reduced.
Once again I urge that instead of looking at whether Bush’s adoption of the surge “worked” or not, it would be far better to look at the costs and consequences of the fact that for 18 months now he has steadfastly refused to follow the excellent recommendations put forward by the Iraq Study Group back in December 2006.
Those recommendations– or something even more decisive than them– are just as valid and urgent today as they were back then.
But just look at the costs that have been imposed– on the Iraqis, as well as on US citizens– by Bush’s failure to undertake the transformative and very urgent diplomatic and political moves that the ISG recommended.
$180 billion of US taxpayer money… 1,110 US service-members killed… and an Iraqi casualty toll among civilians and security forces that is in the tens of thousands over the past 18 months.
To which, today, add a further 50 Iraqi civilians.
Re “did the Baker/ISG Commission work?’
Lets review the what another thousand KIA’s and $200Bn in Chinese debt notes have brought us:
-There is no process in evidence to achieve regional Arab-Turkey-Iran support for internal Iraq reconciliation.
-Provincial elections that were being called for before 2006 have been put off again until 2009.
-No oil law. Water, sewage, medical services, finance/banking all in disarray. Killing levels of unemployment addressed mainly thru the million employed in police/military/security services.
-Nearly 100,000 Sunni insurgents-cum-Sawha are now on our payroll, receiving covert support from Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Egypt, forming a plan B option to subdivide W. Iraq if Iranian influence on he Mliki-Hakim coalition becomes unlivable.
-Turkey has achieved international acceptance of a defacto zone of occupation and intervention N. of the Zagros Mtns, in Kurdistan. Turkish bombing and artillery against PUK no longer raises an eyebrow in Washington, or serious objections from Baghdad.
Given that none of the ISG plan was seriously implemented, it’s not hard to understand why Jim Baker went on to push for new enforceable war powers limits on the executive.
“I record the latest spikes of violence with an incredibly heavy heart and no thought of schadenfreud.”
Cheer up, Helena. The Alqi men are mostly either dead, in prison, in Pakistan or too easily detectable by the increasingly proficient Iraqi security forces.
As consequence, they’re having to use female bombers.
So with any luck Najaf will have to ban the burqua and that would be a good thing.
Try to look on the bright side. You wouldn’t want that surge NOT to be working, I’m sure?
Helena your math collections for just one side!!
Did you know the math for the other side “Iraq/Iraqis” ?
But I believe you either don’t know or you not interested in real numbers. according to one of your recent post you telling us Iraq’s lost TENS of Thousands Iraqis!!!
Hummmmm, TENS Helena……….your math very poor.
The best of all get out from IRAQ NOW.
bb, will Al-Qaeda hire you for your skills of war and fear mongering .
The Bush administration has to consider latest suicide bombings to be good news. The “success of the surge” was making life incomfortable by creating calls for timetables for withdrawal.
Bush’s strategy is uncannily like that of Israel in the Occupied Territories. They see violence as evidence of the need to crack down, lack of violence as evidence that they what they were doing already (cracking down) was working and should not be changed. (Heads I win, tails you lose.)
The suicide bombings have given Bush the rationale to reject timetables and continue the occupation forever, because Iraq is not stable. To hell with last week’s PR. The “success of the surge” is old news.
War in Iraq have nothing to do with oil?
A former Pentagon advisor who was an early advocate of invading Iraq has been looking into entering the potentially lucrative oil business there, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Citing documents outlining a possible deal and people close to the negotiations, the Journal said Richard Perle has been looking into drilling in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, near the city of Erbil.
War in Iraq have nothing to do with oil?
War in Iraq have nothing to do with oil?
A former Pentagon advisor who was an early advocate of invading Iraq has been looking into entering the potentially lucrative oil business there, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Citing documents outlining a possible deal and people close to the negotiations, the Journal said Richard Perle has been looking into drilling in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, near the city of Erbil.
War in Iraq have nothing to do with oil?