33 Dead in Tuesday Attacks, over 70 Wounded
At least 33 persons died in guerrilla attacks or from friendly fire on Tuesday. The Australian Broadcasting Co. reports, ‘ Nine people were killed in the northern city of Mosul, including four peshmerga militiamen reportedly shot dead by police after they were mistaken for insurgents and three students killed when unknown gunmen burst into their apartment. ‘ This in addition to the car bombings in the morning at Hawija, and later a mortar attack at Fallujah and drive-by shootings and ambushes north of Baghdad and elsewhere.
Reuters/ al-Sharq al-Awsat: Abdul Salam Abd al-Karim, a Sunni cleric in Basra, was killed on Monday. He had been kidnapped Sunday by men wearing Iraqi police uniforms. Tension has been building between the Shiite and the Sunni Arab communites in Iraq, with Sunnis alleging that such “police” kidnappers are often Shiite militias such as the Badr Corps. Badr denies involvement.
Bush and Cheney may think everything is going just great in Iraq, but the American public does not.
Proportion who said the rate of US casualties in Iraq is unacceptable: almost 75%
Proportion who said US military is bogged down in Iraq: 66 percent
Proportion who say Iraq war was not worth fighting: almost 60 percent
Proportion who say Iraq is becoming a new Vietnam: more than 40 percent
Proportion who say Iraq war has not made US safer: 52 percent.
Proportion who say that Bush is handling his job poorly: 52 percent
It is coming out that there was a major riot at Abu Ghraib prison over the weekend.
Reuters reports on the discontents of returnees to Iraq from among former exiles.
The Christian Science Monitor reports on hopes that modernizing banking and moving to credit cards could hurt the guerrilla movement. I like CSM and they’ve done some fine reporting from Iraq. In fact, I urge people to subscribe, to help them keep going. But this article has a key flaw. You need security to implement the changes envisaged by the article, so its thesis involves the protagonist pulling himself up by his bootstraps. In Beirut during the Civil War, the guerrillas just relentlessly robbed the banks.
Stephen J. Hedges explains the theory of Fourth Generation Warfare and its relevance to Iraq. The idea that language and cultural training is key is absolutely fundamental. It is amazing that the Bush Administration and the Neocons thought they could run Iraq without knowing Arabic!