I’d like our Democratic candidates to stop saying that the violence has lessened in Iraq. It just isn’t true. Consider the following reports from Sunday and Monday this week:
BAGHDAD (AP) — Twin car bombs struck near the compound of one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite politicians Monday, killing at least six civilians and wounding 20, police and hospital officials said.
In the west of Mosul, a suicide bomber driving a fuel tanker killed 4 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 7.
Then a suicide bomber hit a police checkpoint in Fallujah, killing 3 and wounding 7. Sunni fundamentalist guerrillas have been fighting with notables of the Dulaim tribe because the latter have thrown in with the Americans.
Ten bodies were found in and around Baghdad.
About 3,500 demonstrators marched through the streets of Baquba, which lies north of Baghdad in Diyala province, led by tribal leaders and members of a powerful anti-Qaeda “Awakening” front, an AFP correspondent said.
They demanded that the highly-unpopular police chief Major General Ghanim al-Quraishi be sacked, saying he should be held accountable for recent kidnappings in separate incidents of two women and two men.
U.S.-backed Sunni militiamen have killed three police officers and injured three others, an Iraqi security source refusing to be named said.
WASHINGTON — The number of civilian contractors reported killed in Iraq jumped 17 percent in 2007 and accounted for more than one in four deaths associated with the U.S. occupation last year.
In a year when President Bush sent 30,000 additional troops into Iraq in what’s been called the “surge,” at least 353 civilian contractors working for the U.S. government were killed, up from 301 in 2006, Labor Department records show.
“Incredible,” replied Steven Schooner, a law professor and associate dean at the George Washington University Law School, when told of the contractor death toll.
A hunt is under way for a British journalist and his Iraqi interpreter who were kidnapped at gunpoint from a hotel in Basra at the weekend.
The two men, who were working for the American network CBS, were seized in the early hours of Sunday morning from the Qasr al-Sultan Hotel in the centre of the city by a gang of five to ten men.
The kidnapping came as Iraqi police today said they had found the tortured and bullet-ridden body of an Iraqi journalist who went missing on Sunday in Baghdad.
Northeast of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a school bus in the volatile Diyala province, killing two girls and a boy and wounding the driver and two other pupils, police said. The attack happened as the bus traveled between the predominantly Sunni town of Kanaan and the mainly Shiite town of Balad Ruz.
Iraqi police and forensics officials also said a mass grave with 13 decomposed bodies was uncovered in an orchard near the Diyala province city of Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of the capital. The U.S. military denied the report.
[McClatchey’s report of violence on Monday in Iraq]
Baghdad
– Around 8:30 a.m. a roadside bomb targeted a civilian car in Al Mashtal area, killing one civilian and injuring two others.
– Around 9 a.m. a roadside bomb exploded near Al Mansour fuel station injuring two people. […]
– Around 6 p.m. a parked car bomb near a police station in Dora neighborhood, injured three civilians and two police officers.
– Police found three bodies throughout Baghdad, one in Fidhiliyah, 1 in Obeidi and one in Tobchi.
Diyala
– Gunmen kidnapped Dr. Ahmad Al Jubouri in Muqdadiyah.
– Gunmen attacked an Iraqi army patrol in Muqdadiyah, three gunmen were killed.
[McClatchey’s report of violence on Sunday in Iraq]
Baghdad
Gunmen opened fire targeting Lieutenant General Mohammed Basim Abdul Redha and Colonel Farqad Salman Alwan, both work in the directorate in the general inspector of the defense ministry. The incident took place at 9:00 am in al Yarmook neighborhood west Baghdad.
A civilian was killed and two others were injured when gunmen opened fire randomly targeting a bus in al Nosoor square west Baghdad around 3:00 pm.
A joint force of the Iraqi army and the US army found a grave yard includes five bodies of men in Boob al Sham area north of Baghdad . . .
Salahuddin . . .
Gunmen killed two civilians near Tikrit- Baghdad Street north of Baghdad today afternoon.
Diyala
Two policemen were killed and 17 people (10 policemen and 7 civilians) were injured when ten mortar shells hit Baladrooz police station in Baladrooz town east of Baquba city today morning.
Kirkuk
The head of Abbasi Sahwa Majeed Ahmed Khalaf was injured with two of his followers when a suicide bomber detonated his car near their car on Abbasi- Hawija Street southwest Kirkuk city around 9:30 am. Police said that the suicide bomber was driving a pick up car carrying a cow in the back of the car and got close to Khalaf’s car then detonated his car. . .
Nineveh . . .
Four civilians were injured in a suicide car bomb that targeted a check point of the Iraqi army in al Hadba’a neighborhood downtown Mosul city north of Baghdad today afternoon.
Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and seven civilians were killed in suicide car bomb that targeted a check point of the Iraq army in al Sahaji area west of Mosul city today afternoon.
A fuel station owner was killed and three other civilians were injured when a gunman opened fire in Haj Ali village in Makhmoor town southeast of Mosul city ‘
Dear Senators Clinton and Obama just stop. Stop repeating Republican talking points. Stop implying Bush’s surge is working. Stop doing Senator McCain’s campaigning for him. Stop pandering to the pundit/Bush stenographer crowd who never look at what’s going on in Iraq, they just repeat whatever Dana Perino tells them is going on. Stop being afraid to tell the truth.
Just stop. Now.
And repeat after me: The “Surge” is a failure. Because it is.
