Iraqi PM Appeals For Reconciliation

(CBS/AP)  After a one-day lull, bloodshed surged again in the capital Saturday, with at least 17 people dead in attacks and 27 probable victims of sectarian killings found dumped in the streets as Iraq's prime minister launched a fresh appeal for reconciliation.

Violence has escalated sharply in Baghdad over the past week, except for Friday, when only three killings were recorded — two Iraqis shot to death and a U.S. soldier killed by a bomb.

Saturday's toll raised the city's violent deaths to more than 180 just since Wednesday — either slain by bombs and gunfire or tortured and shot before being dumped, a hallmark of reprisal killings being waged between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Appealing again to Iraq's divided sects, Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged Iraqis to put aside their sectarian, ethnic and political differences and embrace his reconciliation plan.

"National reconciliation is a correct way of thinking and carries a high feeling of responsibility," al-Maliki said. "To succeed in this today, we have to embrace the culture of dialogue and reconciliation."

In other developments:

The Arab League's representative to Iraq has submitted his resignation, citing slow progress on the Pan-Arab organization's efforts to foster reconciliation among Iraqis and insufficient funding, Arab diplomats said Saturday.

U.S. officials say they have not written off Iraq's troubled Anbar province — the country's largest, and one of its most violent — but neither are they sending more U.S. troops there to battle the insurgents. In fact, they have shifted some troops from Anbar to Baghdad this summer, not because security conditions are improving in the western province but because they are deteriorating even more in the capital area.

A U.S. soldier was missing Friday after a truck driven by a suicide bomber exploded near an Iraqi power substation about 12 miles west of Baghdad. The soldier "has been reported as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown," the military said, without elaborating.

Iraq has become one of the most violent conflict areas in the world, although it has been overshadowed in recent months by other crises in the Middle East, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq said Thursday. "In many parts of the country, insurgent, militia and terrorist attacks, as well as gross violations of human rights, have continued to inflict untold suffering, particularly on innocent civilians, most notably women, children and minorities," Ashraf Qazi told the U.N. Security Council.

Al-Maliki's plan is intended to bridge the communal animosities fueling Iraq's violence. Among its 24 points, it offers amnesty to members of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency not involved in terrorist activities and calls for disarming primarily Shiite sectarian militias.

But no major Sunni insurgent group has publicly agreed to join the plan, and no steps have been taken to rein in Shiite militias. Since the plan was unveiled in late June, car bombings, mortar attacks and shootings have killed hundreds of Iraqis.

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[scothemp]

Wotulookinat,
Christ called the Pharisees "sons of the devil", so you need to drop this John-Lennonesque view of him as a hug-the-world hippie like you seem to be. He wasn't like that. He also said "many will hate you because of me". He was no wilting flower.

This just in folks- there's terrorists in Iraq. Contrary to your unsubstantiated beliefs that we are somehow profiteering from Iraqi oil, or that "oil companies should fund the war".

Many of you have the resolve of the Vichy French circa 1942.

[cantshutup]

posted by mjv2944:"Let BP, Shell and the other oil companies put together their on army, I think they can afford it".

I think you said it all, let the oil companies finance the Iraqi War!!!!!...that makes more sense than anything i've heard...you should run for prez with that as your platform!!! YOU'd WIN, supreme court or no supreme court!

[wotulookinat]

Hey, Pope Benny, amazing that Jesus should have said all those mean things about Moslems, and that the New Testament should condemn Mohammed.

Impressive powers of prophecy, given that Islam was only invented 600 years after Jesus' death, and that Mohammed was born about 500 years after the New Testament was written.

[wotulookinat]

According to US commanders, this is simply the implementation of a plan that's been developing for months. But that is a false claim, and US officers in Baghdad would be advised to stop making easily-debunked claims (like last month's cooked figures on sectarian violence) that are rapidly undermining their credibility both in Iraq and in the US.

In fact the berm is a last-minute act of desperation, an attempt to stop the unravelling of Operation Forward Together. So last-minute, in fact, that spokesmen don't even know if the barrier is to be a berm or a trench.

Berms have already been built around five major Iraqi towns: Mosul, Samarra, Falluja, Tal Afar, and Rutbah in western Anbar.

The results are not promising. In Mosul and Tal Afar, within weeks of the berm's completion, local US forces were back to their old, failed technique of large, heavily-armed insurgent sweeps.

In Samarra the berm destroyed priceless archaeological sites but failed to prevent the Golden Dome bombing which set off a major escalation in sectarian violence.

[wotulookinat]

The barrier only addresses one side of the sectarian violence equation, and the less dangerous one at that. Shiite-on-Sunni killing is not done with car bombs or mortars, but with death squads and kidnapping, frequently by the very Iraqi police and army units that are supposedly helping the Americans in Forward Together. This is what is killing most Baghdadis.

The barrier offers no sort of answer to this problem. The best it can do is to slow Sunni attacks while giving the Shiites free rein. Indeed that may even be its real purpose, because the idea seems to have originated with the notorious Sunni-killers of the Interior Ministry.

Even a complete ban on vehicular traffic yesterday for Friday prayers failed to prevent dozens of bodies, presumably almost all of them Sunnis, from turning up all over the city.

Such a ban, longer-term, would certainly have some effect on death squad activity, but at the cost of damaging the economy and increasing frustration against the government. It doesn't seem feasible.

The current effort to get police cars under central control and track their use is definitely a necessary measure that will help some.

But there is still no plan in place that is going to stop the sectarian violence. The damage was done when Shiite militias were allowed to pack the security forces with their gunmen.

[glidescube]

Irony:

In 2006 An Iraqi judge says Hussien was not a dictator but he was.

In 2000 An American judge said Bush was President but was not!

[pope_benny]

Jesus says and I quote from the New Testament "Let them Muslims eat cake for they are like little children and should be beaten with the rotten tail of a deal camel until they have learnt the lesson of life" he also go on to say "Mohammad? Who's Mohammad? He ain't no prophet, he's some dirty little camel jockey prophet wannabe..beware false prophets, especially ones that spew violence." There you have it right out of the New Testament.

The only good digging trenches is going to do is to provide a place for the burial of more victims of the civil war.

Oh, that's right, it's not a civil war is it, because Cheney is telling Bush it isn't so - therefore, it isn't a civil war.

Meanwhile, taxpayers contnue footing an ever increasing bill for a war that should never have been started, and Cheney continues making a profit of the backs of taxpayers and soldiers.

Bush on the other hand still lives in a dreamland, while a war he started to impress his daddy still rages on, claiming more innocent lives.

Hmmmm. I wonder who is responsible for the deaths of more innocent lives - GW Bush or Bin Laden?

No. killed in 9/11 - 2,819
No. of Amerian soldiers killed in Iraq - 2,680
No. of Iraqi civilians killed (estimate[1]) - 45,000

So far, Bush is the winner.

[1] Some say this figure is much higher

[clestes-2009]

Oh and finally a statement out of Bolton that is the truth. What a relevation! Except he took too long to say it. Iraq has been in civil war for at least a year and probably longer.

[clestes-2009]

This just sickens me, and I see no end in sight because Bush the coward can't admit to mistakes.