During this past Saturday’s radio address, George W. Bush ran through his now familiar laundry list on Iraq: We didn’t ask for this war, but September 11th changed everything; we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here; Iraq will be a beacon of freedom in the Middle East. As for that “civil war this and civil war that,” Bush said:
Working side-by-side with Iraqi forces, we recently launched a major new campaign to end the security crisis in Baghdad. This operation is still in its early stages, yet the initial results are encouraging.
Unfortunately, reality has once again intruded on Bush’s alternate worldview. From just the first four days in September:
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Police found the tortured, blindfolded bodies of 33 men scattered across the capital and the U.S.-led coalition reported combat deaths of seven servicemen, a day after Iraqi leaders said the capture of a top terror suspect would reduce violence.
One shudders to contemplate what Bush would consider discouraging.
And what else has been happening in Baghdad? Sadly, there are only more “encouraging” results.
BAGHDAD – Police said they found the bodies of four Iraqis in the capital.
BAGHDAD – Three bombs killed two Iraqi civilians and wounded 19, including three policemen, in an attack near a police convoy in Baghdad’s Waziriya district, police sources said.
BAGHDAD – Gunmen attacked an Iraqi security firm in the western Baghdad Jihad neighbourhood killing two and wounding eight, an Interior Ministry source said.
BAGHDAD – A bomb planted inside an apartment building in Baghdad’s mainly Shi’ite New Baghdad district wounded three people, police said.
BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi policemen in Baghdad’s southern Doura district on Friday, police said.
By the way, Doura is the district that just two weeks ago had every house, “completely cleared” and a wall erected around it to “keep out terrorists,” as a key step in Operation Together Forward.
Apparently the Iraqi Parliment knew what it was doing today when they extended the State of Emergency that they declared nearly two years ago. Another “encouraging” development in that new beacon of freedom that is Iraq.
And oh by the way, during the first four days of September, another eleven U.S. servicemen have died.
Bush continues “looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.”
