The Deadly Iraqi Lottery

Patrick Cockburn, writing in Counterpunch, provides some details about the latest bombing near the Green Zone:

A suicide bomber blew himself up and killed seven people in Baghdad yesterday on the first anniversary of the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Far from that being the turning point the US had hoped for, the conflict remains bitter a year later. American planes have resumed bombing Fallujah, which the Marines claimed to have captured last month. Seven US Marines were killed in combat in western Iraq at the weekend. And the suicide bombings are creating a growing mood of insecurity in the capital.

Kifah Khudair Abbas, 41, who has seven children, was in the back of a car being driven by her brother-in-law when the bomb went off. She was knocked unconscious but it was the Iraqi police who inflicted her worst injury by shooting indiscriminately after the attack. "I got wounded by a bullet in my leg when the police opened fire," said Mrs Abbas as she lay in a hospital.

Her son Abbas Hussein, standing beside her bed, said: "I am very angry about what happened to my mother. The Americans caused all this mess. All these explosions and all this security vacuum is because of the Americans."...

US commanders have been trying to build up and train Iraqi security forces but there is little sign of this working. In Mosul, supposedly a model for US-Iraqi co-operation a year ago, the 8,000-strong police force dissolved last month when guerrillas attacked. President Yawar, a Sunni tribal chief, said that Iraqis yearned for strong leadership in the current turmoil. He warned: "This could create an environment in which an Iraqi Hitler could emerge like the one created by the defeat of Germany and the humiliation of Germans in World War One."

Members of the Iraqi interim government are much more visible and vocal abroad than they are in Iraq - and enthusiasm for foreign travel among government ministers is a standing joke in the press. Their absence is understandable because they are in danger of assassination in Baghdad and are often confined to the Green Zone and a few heavily defended government buildings.

Elections? Not any that could be considered legitimate, at least for the country as a whole. As Riverbend noted, the Sh'ia majority seems poised to turn the country into an Iranian-style theocracy, although it's sadly reasonable and logical to expect a Sunni-led insurgency to continue--and that doesn't account for the Kurdish areas of the country.

Meanwhile, for a look at the consequences of the Fallujah assault, click here--but be warned that these photographs are quite graphic. As for the efficacy of the Fallujah assault, well...

One thing is certain: violence will continue, people will be killed, and any money we spend there is basically wasted.