The Obama Administration’s claims that security is “greatly improved” in Iraq and that the war ended last week took another serious blow today, when a series of coordinated attacks across the nation targeted security forces.
Though the casualty figures are still coming in and may change, at least 86 Iraqis, including a large number of security forces, were killed and 371 others were wounded in the attacks. The largest attacks were in Baghdad and Kut.
The attacks appeared to target security forces, including police in Kut and a police station parking lot in northern Baghdad. Other attacks hit checkpoints and near an army base in Mosul.
The attacks come just eight days after a massive attack against Army recruits in Baghdad which left 61 people dead. The inability of the Iraqi security forces to defend themselves, let alone the rest of Iraq, is raising growing concerns.
Iraq’s largest political bloc Iraqiya is said to have called an “emergency session” of parliament, though it is unclear when or even if this will happen. Iraq’s parliament has been in recess for over a month, holding only a brief session to swear members in and then recessing because no group has enough seats to form a government.
Good to see that the "invasion" of Iraq is well and truly over! Thought it would never happen! F…me
You have to wonder how dumb half the American people are to think anything is"over" in the middle east.
The Shia have been carrying out ethnic cleansing of Sunnis in Baghdad and other towns, pushing them to move to Sunni-only neighborhoods. The Sunnis were completely disenfranchised after the invasion, save for a few collaborators used as window dressing. The Sunnis under Saddam Hussein led a Ba'ath Party that was anti-religious and pro-American; they invaded Iran on Washington's behalf and two million people died. Iraq was the most westernized Gulf country, where Western-style rock concerts were held while the Christians ran their liquor stores in Baghdad.
But they made one mistake: they gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and gave diplomatic support to the Palestinian freedom movement, a rarity in Gulf forums where the U.S.-bought dictators keep their complaints to a low murmur. For this Hussein must be killed and the Sunnis thrown out. Ironically, the Shias then took over, their leaders back from exile in Iran, the country the Iraqi Ba'ath government invaded with U.S.-supplied weapons.
No wonder they are pissed. They thought they did everything the U.S. asked for. Even when they invaded the artificial UK-created state "Kuwait," after its economic warfare by dumping the oil price for the rest of OPEC and drilling for oil under the Iraqi border, they asked for and received approval from the U.S. ambassador first. And still they are invaded! After having been bombed on average once a week for TWELVE YEARS!
If I were an Iraqi Sunni, I would probably be making bombs too.
Way to go Team Bush/Obama. The religious crazies have destroyed a once Secular Iraq.
Women who used to go to Universities, hold professional jobs, wear makeup, blue jeans, mini skirts, etc. etc. etc. Now aren't allowed to work unless it is some menial slave labor job, and if they are caught outside without a bag over their head, they will get beaten or worse…
When will this end? This is getting sick anymore.
Charles