Car bombings and other attacks across the capital on Wednesday killed at least 34 people, as U.S. and Iraqi leaders said they would step up efforts to give Iraqi forces more control of the country's security.
The deadliest blast targeted a group of men waiting for temporary work in the mostly Shiite Kamaliya neighborhood of southeast Baghdad. It killed eight day laborers and injured 13, including three police officers, said Lt. Col. Muhsin Saeed, an Interior Ministry official. The day before, a car bomb killed 70 day laborers and injured more than 230 about a mile from the fortified Green Zone.
The spate of car bombings came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, under pressure to stop sectarian warfare and attacks by insurgents, promised greater security. In a meeting in Baghdad with a U.S. congressional delegation headed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Maliki said Iraqi troops should be given control of the country's security as soon as possible, his office said.
The above, noted by Martha, is from Nancy Trejos' "Scattered Attacks Kill At Least 34 in Baghdad" (Washington Post). The puppet, Nouri al-Maliki doesn't want US forces out of Iraq. As clear as the majority of Iraqis have been on wanting a deadline for all foreign forces out of their country, al-Maliki's been about wanting US forces to stay. So what's going on with the increasing calls, by al-Maliki, for Iraqi forces to have control? Who knows but a friend who is a professor in Middle East studies asked that we note that with the puppet's days apparently increasingly numbered, he may be operating under the belief that if he's controlling security forces and they are the primary in the provinces, a coup against him (by the US) might be less likely.
While the puppet may be attempting to shore up what passes for 'strength,' Bully Boy reveals he never left the 80s and he was a total dance queen then by repeatedly singing Taylor Dayne's "Don't Rush Me" in public. David S. Cloud's "Bush Won't Be 'Rushed' on Iraq, but Says He'll Press Maliki" (New York Times) offers
President Bush said Wednesday that he was "not going to be rushed" into making decisions on a new strategy in Iraq but intended to press Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's government to reach out to Iraq’s minority Sunni Muslim population.
[. . .]
A senior administration official said that Mr. Bush had decided to postpone a national address on Iraq strategy until early next year after having breakfast with Mr. Gates early on Tuesday and realizing that his new defense secretary was not being given much time to get up to speed.
We're apparently all supposed to forget that prior to being tapped by Bully Boy for Secretary of Defense (and rubber stamped by elected officials), Robert Gates served on the James Baker Circle Jerk. As Gates and other allies of his father's allow Bully Boy to sing "Hold An Old Friend's Hands" his repeated delays on Iraq make it very likely he'll begin the new year singing another Tiffany hit, the lament "Could've Been."
While he dithers and dallies (the real point of the Circle Jerk) and George Cassey makes noises about a possible reduction in troops (in 2008), the chaos and violence continues in Iraq with, already today, reports emerging of a mass kidnapping today in Baghdad and, also in Baghdad, an attack on the Shi'ite vice president's, Adel Abdul Mahdi, convoy.
But don't rush the Bully Boy. He'll have another plan (to continue off the cliff) just as soon as the new year rolls around.
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the new york times
david s. cloud
the washington post
nancy trejos
