WP: At Least 69 Killed in Attacks Across Iraq

[grytpype]

War news from all over Iraq. Lots of bad news here. The civil war rages on. US troops in firefight in Baghdad. Formerly cooperative Sufi leaders joins the Sunni insurgency for self-defense.

I'll just excerpt the part about the Baghdad street fighting. But the whole long article is full of bad news today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700306.html

At Least 69 Killed in Attacks Across Iraq
Deadliest Incidents Occur North of Baghdad; Premier Insists Violence Is Easing

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 28, 2006; A11

BAGHDAD, Aug. 27 -- Gunmen and bombers claimed at least 69 lives in Iraq on Sunday, even as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki repeated the assertions of Iraqi and U.S. leaders that violence was easing from a wartime high set earlier this summer.

...


Another of the day's major attacks was in Baghdad, where a bomb in a minibus killed nine people at a police checkpoint on Sadoun Street, in the center of the city near the Palestine Hotel, police said.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed that seven Iraqi civilians were killed Sunday night in what Johnson said was a street battle between American forces and insurgents in Baghdad.

It began when a bomb exploded near American troops in a Stryker armored vehicle in the mostly Sunni west Baghdad neighborhood of Ghaziliyah, a district where U.S. forces have beefed up their presence in an effort to quell sectarian violence.

Insurgents opened fire with grenade launchers and guns after the bomb hit the Stryker, Johnson said. U.S. forces returned fire, wounding four attackers, whom Americans took into custody, Johnson said. He said it appeared the civilians had been caught in the cross-fire.

A resident at the scene gave a different account, saying all seven, including a family of five traveling together, were killed when U.S. forces opened fire on cars around their vehicle following the bombing.

Also in Baghdad, three American soldiers were killed, two by roadside bombs and one by insurgent gunfire, the U.S. military said.

...

[grytpype]

1. Also read Ignatius and Hoagland in the WaPo

Ignatius: Iraq: Still Worth Some Waiting

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501237.html

In congressional testimony this month, Abizaid raised a red flag about the risk of civil war, but he told me Friday that he had new confidence that Iraqi leaders were prepared to make the tough decisions necessary to check sectarian strife. He found Prime Minster Nouri al-Maliki and his key ministers more confident and focused than they had been earlier this summer, when death squads seemed to have taken over Baghdad. To test the new security plan for the capital, Abizaid walked the streets of two of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods on Thursday. "The chances of success are good, if we give ourselves time to succeed," says Abizaid.

I don't feel quite so optimistic, but I think Abizaid is right in urging a sensible, deliberate policy to reduce the American presence -- as opposed to a pell-mell rush for the exit. The situation in Iraq is difficult, but the sense of panic in the Washington debate just doesn't match the situation here. It's bad, but it's not hurtling out of control.

Americans should be worried about Iraq but not so much that they take rash actions that would end up hurting American interests in the Middle East at a delicate time. We'll be out of Iraq, one way or another, over the next few years. Rushing the process because of American impatience would make a bad situation even worse.




Hoagland: Morality in Iraq, Then and Now

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501238.html

- talks about how we repeatedly betrayed the Kurds and Shiites under Saddam, and then there's this:

Military intervention can be justified when it changes things for the better. It does not have to be perfect. But conducting a military occupation that has lost the ability to change the situation for the better for those being occupied is unwise and ultimately untenable. It is also immoral. U.S. involvement in Iraq is again perilously close to being just that.

[saigon68]

6. "BRING EM ON" shouted the AWOL CHIMPANZEE

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Iraqi leader denies civil war as 50 people die ("never be in civil war")

CNN: Iraqi leader denies civil war as 50 people die
August 27, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- On a day in which at least 50 people were killed, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he did not foresee a civil war in Iraq and that violence in his country was abating.

"In Iraq, we'll never be in civil war," al-Maliki told CNN's "Late Edition" on Sunday....

***

On Saturday, al-Maliki hosted a conference to bring about national reconciliation.

At least 400 people attended, including tribal leaders, politicians and government officials, an Iraqi Islamic party official said.

At the conference, al-Maliki told leaders there was no difference among Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Sunnis and Shiites because "we are all Iraqis," an official in the prime minister's office said....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/27/iraq.main/index.html

[bemildred]

3. Hump? What hump?

[LynnTheDem]

4. Baghdad bush-bot speaks.

Only really stupid people (rightwingnuts) will listen & believe.

[WCGreen]

5. So if we leave, then it will be a civil war...

But if we stay, then it's just sectarian violence....

[yellowcanine]

7. But "Iraq more secure", says UK Defense Minister, so, not to worry.

Sure am glad he cleared that up.:sarcasm:


Edit: Link here.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2479443

[Supersedeas]

8. Progress?? Mission Accomplished?? Last throes?? Welcomed as liberators?