I could do an Iraq news roundup, but this Associated Press article is good enough. The key portion of it?
U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said there has been an average of 34 attacks a day against U.S. and Iraqi forces in the capital over the past five days. The daily average for the period June 14 until July 13 was 24 a day, he said.
“We have not witnessed the reduction in violence one would have hoped for in a perfect world,” U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said at a news briefing Thursday. “The only way we’re going to be successful in Baghdad is to get the weapons off the streets.”
Caldwell said militias and death squads have responded to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s call for a crackdown by intensifying attacks to derail Iraq’s new unity government.
Last month, al-Maliki announced a security plan for Baghdad, including up to 50,000 police and soldiers on the streets, more checkpoints, and raids in neighborhoods where violence is high. But with surging attacks in the capital – including the kidnapping of high-ranking Iraqi officials – leading politicians from Shiite and Sunni parties have declared the plan a failure.
I don’t know how many more times we declare a new initiative a failure without drawing the proper conclusions. What is going on in Iraq is a total catastrophe. It’s a catastrophe from a humanitarian point of view. I don’t know what it will take for the right-wingers to acknowledge this and demand accountability. I mean, can we please agree that Donald Rumsfeld needs to find a job in the private sector? Les Aspin resigned over Mogadishu, for Chrissakes. That was honorable. The Greeks killed or exiled their failed military leaders. All we ask is that Rumsfeld be fired.
Meanwhile, Ayatollah Sistani is still calling for calm and still fighting for peace. I can only imagine the carnage that would ensue if Sistani ever lost his patience and called for retaliation. It’s not like the Shi’ites are really listening to him now, but with his blessing the bloodletting could reach unimaginable proportions.
I know my government will not listen to me, but they need to acknowledge total abject unconditional failure and beg the international community to forgive us and help us prevent a civil war of Rwandan proportions. Either that, or we should just get out and pray that the world will not lump us in with some of history’s worst actors.
