Bush, Maliki, to send more U.S. troops to Baghdad

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060724/pl_nm/bush_iraq_dc_1

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will consider adding more U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad and other ways to counter surging violence when they meet at the White House on Tuesday.

Bush and Maliki will consider new approaches to quelling the bloodshed in and around the capital after Maliki's security plan for the region proved a disastrous failure.

Maliki's emergence to power prompted Bush to make a surprise visit to Baghdad June 13 and, along with the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, spawned hopes among Americans that things were changing for the better.

But with Sunni-Shiite violence claiming hundreds of lives in the weeks since, analysts see Iraq getting worse with violence among Shiite groups rising as well as Shiite-versus-Sunni bloodshed.

The article says that Bush's "plan" is to move U.S. troops into Baghdad from other parts of the country. Unfortunately, "other parts of the country" are in just as much turmoil as Baghdad. But, seeing as how most of the cameras are in Baghdad, it's more important to "show the American people" what a swell job he's doing of bringing "stability" to Iraq.

Undoubtedly, the PNAC'rs and Pentagon have visions of cheering Iraqis flinging flowers at them for shooting up everything in sight.

[EST]

1. Given that the three competing gangs have already

acknowledged that a civil war now exists and they have decided to divvy up Iraq into three discrete realms, with Baghdad split into East and West Baghdad, how the hell is it that more American lives sacrificed on the altar of holy war supposed to improve things?

The inmates are running the asylum.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Kick for (hopefully) more comments.