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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 20th,
2009 - Iraq Carnage Shows Sectarian War Goes On |
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Iraq Carnage Shows Sectarian
War Goes On Attacks on Ministries Kill Scores, Wound Hundreds By Ernesto Londoņo & Greg Jaffe Washington Post August 20, 2009 Baghdad, Aug. 19 - The
massive car bombs that killed about 100 people and wounded more than 500 in Baghdad
on Wednesday morning offered powerful new evidence of the enduring strength
of Sunni extremists nearly two months after U.S. troops all but disappeared
from Iraqi cities. The early-morning blasts, by
far the deadliest attacks since the June 30 withdrawal of U.S. troops from
cities, raise fresh questions about whether American troops disengaged from
Baghdad too quickly and whether the recent violence will lead them to try to
assert more control over security, at the risk of embarrassing and unsettling
Iraq's government. The coordinated bombings
targeted prominent ministries, marking the most crippling attack on the
Shiite-led government to date. Despite a recent U.S. focus on tension between
Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq, Wednesday's strikes suggest that the
sectarian fight between Shiites and Sunnis over dominance of the country
remains far from over. U.S. military officials in
Baghdad said there is little they can do in response to the surge in violence
other than pressure Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to be more cautious
as his government takes control of the country's security. Senior American
officials have criticized Maliki for recent decisions that they consider
overconfident and impulsive. Since the June 30 urban drawdown, his government
has sharply restrained the mobility and authority of U.S. troops and his
security forces have begun removing blast walls along major roads, declaring
the capital safe. Retired Col. Peter Mansoor,
a senior adviser to the top American commander in Iraq in 2007 and 2008, said
the Iraqi government is unlikely to ask the U.S. military to reestablish its
presence in Baghdad. "Regrettably, I think
we can't go back in," he said, adding that such a move would in any
event be unpalatable to most Americans and Iraqis. "The Iraqi government
got ahead of itself. It is declaring the war over when it is far from
over." His comments echoed those of
other U.S. military officials, who say the United States has reached a point
of diminishing returns in its ability to influence Iraqi decisions. The bombs, which exploded
outside the Foreign and Finance ministries in heavily guarded areas of
downtown Baghdad, detonated in close succession shortly after 10:30 a.m. The deadliest blast left an
enormous crater a few feet from the Foreign Ministry, which is near the Green
Zone. At least 60 people were killed, mostly ministry employees, and 315 were
wounded, Iraqi authorities said. The blast targeting the
Finance Ministry killed at least 35 people and wounded 228, Iraqi officials
said. It caused an overpass to collapse and left the building, which had only
recently been repaired after a bombing in 2007, in shambles. In addition, a series of
mortar attacks and other explosions occurred in close succession, with
reports indicating that as many as eight people were killed. Maliki blamed the attacks on
former officials of Saddam Hussein's regime and vowed to revamp security
measures. In recent months, as
violence has increased in northern Iraq, in part fueled by tension between
Arabs and Kurds, U.S. officials have said that that fault line has surpassed
the Sunni-Shiite schism as the biggest threat to the country's stability.
Wednesday's carnage led some to suggest that assessment was premature. U.S.
officials have been urging Maliki in recent months to take more meaningful
steps to reconcile with Sunnis, even those with links to Hussein's regime, to
little avail. "The Maliki government
doesn't seem to be holding to its deals," said Stephen Biddle, a senior
fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who frequently advises U.S.
officials on Iraq and Afghanistan policy. "The Sunnis seem to be saying
that there are costs to the government's actions." He said American officials
must use their diminishing influence in Iraq to foster reconciliation. "We no longer have
coercive leverage," Biddle said. "Now the challenge is to persuade.
... Part of what needs to change is Maliki's behavior." Retired Lt. Col. Douglas A.
Ollivant, a military planner in Baghdad in 2007 who recently served as an
Iraq expert on the National Security Council, said the recent spate of
attacks do not appear likely to plunge the country back to the point of
staggering violence and near-anarchy reached in 2007. "At the strategic
level, the bombings don't appear to be having the effect al-Qaeda
wants," he said. "It's not rekindling a civil war." Still, the ravaged
buildings, thick plumes of smoke and incessantly wailing sirens brought back
the sights and sounds of the darkest days of the war. Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim,
58, an official at the Foreign Ministry, had just sent off his 24-year-old
son, also a ministry employee, to the mailroom when the blast shook the
building, shattering all its windows and sending large chunks crashing to the
ground. "I ran upstairs trying
to find him and could hardly reach him because of the dead bodies lying on
the floor," he said Wednesday night. "When I found my son, he was
drenched in blood." A piece of glass had pierced Gassan's heart, killing
him. Hours later, after the dead
and wounded had been taken away, the scene outside the ministry was
apocalyptic. Scores of cars were mangled beyond recognition. Trees were
stripped of leaves and branches. The stench of burned rubber lingered in the
air. Gazim Mohammed, 54, sat
outside, under the scorching sun, looking desolate as he watched the
building. Two of his sons worked at the ministry, and they were not answering
their phones. "They've
disappeared," he said quietly. Teams of American
explosives-disposal experts and army trainers responded to the scenes of the
bombings, and U.S. Apache helicopters hovered overhead. Some American troops
stood on the roof of the building across the street from the Foreign
Ministry, while others established a security cordon. Soldiers took
photographs and searched through debris. "Just make sure you
photograph us doing nothing," one of the U.S. troops said wryly to a
reporter taking photos. "Because that's what we're supposed to be doing
now." A few miles across town, at
al-Kindi Hospital, Mohammed Nouri, 45, shuffled from one room to another to
tend to his two brothers, who were seriously wounded in the Finance Ministry
bombing. "The civilians are the
ones getting killed," he said, taking a break from wiping the blood off
his bare-chested brother Salah, 36, as he complained faintly about his sore
head. "The government needs to protect them." Next door, doctors used
scissors to remove burned flesh from the feet of his younger brother, Abas. Abas and Salah were driving
by the Finance Ministry when the overpass they were on collapsed. Their
pickup truck crashed down and caught fire. "Now I've become
jobless because my car is burned," said Salah, a truck driver whose
face, arms and chest were burned. "That's the only way I have to make a
living. My car is destroyed, and I am sure the government will never help me." The patient in front of him,
a senior official at the Finance Ministry, said he has little faith in the
government's ability to defeat the insurgency. The 53-year-old official, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue,
said U.S. troops withdrew from Baghdad too soon. "There is infiltration
everywhere in the state, especially in the security forces," he said.
"Today the entire city was targeted. How do you justify that?" Jaffe reported from
Washington. Special correspondents Qais Mizher and Zaid Sabah in Baghdad
contributed to this report. External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/19/AR2009081900533.html |