From CNN:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — As debate raged in Washington about the U.S. military in Iraq, suicide bombings killed dozens of people Friday in Baghdad and near the Iranian border in Khanaqin.
The Khanaqin carnage occurred when two suicide bombers detonated near or inside two Shiite Muslim mosques, Iraqi police said.
The U.S. military said 55 people were killed and 80 wounded, while Iraqi police reported 65 dead and 85 wounded.
Iraqi police also said a bomb detonated at about the same time in a car parked in front of a bank in Khanaqin. It was unknown whether that blast resulted in casualties. . . .
In Washington, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a leading Democratic hawk on defense issues, sparked a firestorm of debate Thursday when he called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. . . .
White House spokesman Scott McClellan compared Murtha with anti-war filmmaker Michael Moore and echoed earlier statements by House GOP leaders in accusing him of “surrender.”
Two things of note.
First, this was a major attack in a sector of Iraq that had heretofore seen little of these types of suicide bombings. It’s only further evidence that a civil war has already started between the Shia and the Sunnis. Absent a political resolution of their conflict, it isn’t likely to end whether we stay or go.
Second, I was dismayed to see CNN’s lead link this attack to the debate regarding the war stirred by Rep. John Murtha’s comments yesterday. The implication suggested, though not made explicitly in the story, is that the two are somehow connected. This is unlikely in my view, and does a disservice to CNN’s readership.
Suicide bombing missions are military actions that require more than 24 hours notice to plan and carry out. Whatever the reason for the attack, I doubt it had anything whatsoever to do with Rep. Murtha’s remarks. Perhaps, if the attack had been directed at American forces I would be more inclined to believe that the two are somehow connected.
Instead, this attack was directed against a Shia city and it targeted a predominately Shia populace. Something tells me that, rather than a rapid response to Murtha, this new bombing atttack is more than likely related to this story:
Sunnis demand UN inquiry into Iraq ministry’s torture chamber
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
Published: 17 November 2005Leading Sunni politicians in Iraq have demanded an international inquiry following the discovery that 173 people had been tortured and held captive in an interior ministry bunker.
They claim such abuse was regularly carried out by paramilitaries connected to the government and accuse US forces of giving it “the green light”.
The call for an independent inquiry was backed by the United Nations’ special investigator on torture. But the Badr Organisation, a Shia militia suspected of responsibility for the mistreatment of the mainly Sunni prisoners, has denied any involvement. . . .
The discovery of the prisoners, most of them starving, some allegedly flayed, is an embarrassment to the US administration, which has pledged to end abuse by the Iraqi government. Manfred Nowak, the UN special investigator on torture, backed the call for an independent investigation. He said: “What we hear is shocking, but we have received allegations of these secret places in Iraq for quite a long time. It only means that there is a need for an impartial and independent investigation.”
Hussein Kamal, the Deputy Interior Minister, who visited the bunker, said: “I never thought I would witness scenes like these. I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beatings, one or two detainees were paralysed and some had the skin peeled off parts of their bodies.” He also revealed that “instruments of torture” were found in the building.
Omar Hujail, a member of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, maintained that an investigation ordered by Iraq’s Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, would be a whitewash. “This is not the only place where torture takes place,” he said. “We have been telling them for ages that there are people wearing the uniforms of the interior ministry raiding houses and arresting people at night, but everybody denies it.
“We urge the United Nations and human rights organisations to denounce these violations and we call on them to conduct a fair international investigation.”
The Badr Organisation, formerly the Badr Brigade, is the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), an influential voice in the Iraqi government which counts the Interior Minister, Bayan Jabor, as one its members. The Badr Brigade was formed in exile in Iran when Saddam Hussein was in power and its members are said to have taken over large sections of the police force in Basra in the British-controlled south. . . .
Hundreds of bodies, often with signs of torture, have been discovered in Iraq, thought to be the victims of “death squads” of paramilitaries associated with the government. Earlier this year, a Human Rights Watch report accused theIraqi security forces of widespread abuse.
If one wishes to draw connections between these bombings and other current events, I suggest the place to start is with the coordinated efforts by the current Iraqi government and these so-called death squads to murder and torture predominately Sunni victims. Of course, the allegation that all this was done with the direct or tacit approval of American forces in Iraq is also troubling, and far more likely to fuel the continuing insurgent bombings than anything any US politician, Democrat or Republican, has to say back in the US.