The news out of Iraq is horrible. The main oil pipelines in the south have been blown up, while fighting in Basra threatens to turn into a “nightmare for the dwindling British forces based near by.” In Baghdad, the Green Zone in under sustained mortar attack and the State Department has ordered everyone into hardened facilities.
On Thursday, the State Department instructed all Embassy personnel not to leave reinforced structures. A memo sent to embassy staff and obtained by The Associated Press says employees are required to wear helmets and other protective gear if they must venture outside and strongly advises them to sleep in blast-resistant locations instead of trailers.
Things outside the Green Zone are even worse:
Police said gunmen attacked the east Baghdad home of Tahseen Sheikhly, a spokesman for the Baghdad security plan launched in February 2007 to stabilize the capital. According to officials in the Interior Ministry, which oversees police, the attackers shot and wounded at least one of Sheikhly’s guards and ransacked his home before fleeing with the spokesman.
Sheikhly has appeared frequently at news conferences alongside U.S. officials discussing what they consider progress of the security plan.
Other reports say that Sheikhly’s home was burnt to the ground. In other parts of the city, Sadrists demonstrated against the government.
The protests began around 10:00 am (0700 GMT) outide the office of the Sadr movement in its Baghdad bastion, the impoverished Sadr City district of some two million people.
“Maliki you are a coward! Maliki is an American agent! Leave the government, Maliki! How can you strike Basra?” shouted the crowd as they began gathering in the area while Iraqi and US troops sealed off the streets.
Meanwhile, our president gave an upbeat speech this morning and admonished Congress.
“Some members of Congress decided the best way to encourage progress in Baghdad was to criticize and threaten Iraq’s leaders while they’re trying to work out their differences,” Bush told a military audience at the cavernous U.S. Air Force museum.
“But hectoring was not what the Iraqi leaders needed,” Bush said. “What they needed was security and that is what the `surge’ has provided.”
Somehow this must be good news for John McCain.
.
Iraqi’s fighting Iraqi’s
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."This is just one more reason we can’t let Obama become President, since he hasn’t yet passed the Commander in Chief threshold like Hillary “Sniper Fire” Clinton and John “Four More Years” McCain have.
are we heading for a real time version of coppola’s apocalypse now ending?
…an air strike being called and the
basegreen zone being blown to bits in a spectacular display, consequently killing everyone left…or a re-enactment of the helicopter retreat at the embassy in nam?…the parallels are striking.
Bush: it’s all proof that the “surge” is working. We’re just not getting it.
well, we’re getting the bill.
This shit sickens me and I miss Billmon’s wise cynicism about now.
Here’s a good article on the Situation in Iraq.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/80580/?page=entire
Bush says that he is pleased with the current fighting over in Basra including the attacks on the green zone. Whenever Bush something weird, hold onto your jock strap cause he’s got something up his sleeve.
My hunch it just might be NSPD-51 (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive) signed by Bush back in May 9th 2007. Just to refresh recent campaign saturated memories, this was the highly controversial directive that Bush granted the President (himself) extraordinary powers for any “Catastrophic Emergency” without any permission or oversight from Congress. “Catastrophic emergency” was loosely defined as “any incident REGARDLESS OF LOCATION, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U>S> population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS.”
A serious battle/bombing of the Iraq Green Zone resulting in heavy destruction could (in Bush’s opinion) meet the conditional definition of NSPD-51 and trigger the so-called “Catastrophic Emergency provisions of this directive. As I recall, under these provisions the President can effectively assume control of all state and local governments along with all major business enterprises. Last year when this directive was signed, many people expressed the fear that Bush could use it a pretext to remain in office long after his term expires, by simply suspending any possible Presidential succession until after the “Emergency” has been eliminated.
A flight of fantasy? I think not. After eight years we have all come to know many of the idiosyncrasies of George W. Bush and the way he expresses himself in public. So I have my fingers crossed when he says, with his well known wry half smile, that he’s pleased with the current fighting in Iraq.
I think Bush’s attempt will end up something like this:
Glendower:
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur:
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
This is shaping up precisely as Gilliard predicted. It’s Dien Bien Phu all over again.
I think we will be out of Iraq before Nov, and we will long for the days of evacuations off the top of roof tops.
sigh
l’m afraid you’re right alicedem.
for those not old enough to remember, the recent attacks in iraq are eerily reminiscent of the tet offensive in vietnam in 1968. perhaps more than any other singular event in that misadventure, it marked the beginning of the end.
reintrepreted by robert fisk vis-a-vis iraq, afghanistan, and ultimately pakistan:
Tet offensive of 1968 wouldn’t be so bad. I am thinking of Dien Bien Phu 1953-54
much much uglier