Iraqi PM Appeals For Reconciliation

But Bloodshed Surges, Raising Bagdad's Death Toll To 180 In 4 Days

(CBS/AP) 
Al-Maliki said that once the plan managed to create an “atmosphere of reconciliation and dialogue,” his government would take steps based on the views expressed both by non-governmental groups and by tribal leaders — who last month agreed to back his effort.

“These decisions will be historic and they should be shouldered by all the groups participating in the political process,” he said.

The U.S. military confirmed that Iraqi security forces plan to dig trenches and set up berms around Baghdad in an attempt to prevent insurgents and explosive-laden cars from getting into Baghdad.

“There is a plan in progress for a security belt around Baghdad that includes trenches and other obstacles for channeling exit from and entry to the city through checkpoints controlled by Iraqi forces. This is a cooperative effort between the Iraqi government and the coalition,” said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman.

In Saturday's violence, gunmen killed the former spokesman of a defunct political coalition that included Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and independent parties. Mohammed Shihab al-Dulaimi was shot in central Baghdad, the leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, Adnan Al-Duleymi, said.

A suicide car bomb aimed at U.S. and Iraqi vehicles in the capital's southern Dora district killed three Iraqis who were shopping in a market and wounded 19 people, police 1st Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq said. He said another car bomb killed two soldiers and a civilian downtown.

Police also reported three policemen slain by a car bomb, the shooting deaths of two civilians in separate incidents, and three civilians killed by two roadside bombs.

Gunmen also killed three civilians and wounded eight in a drive-by shooting in central Baghdad, Lt. Bilal Ali Mejeed of the Risafa police station said.

In the volatile western city of Ramadi, meanwhile, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed three Iraqi policemen outside a hospital and a car bomb killed four officers at a checkpoint, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

[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.

[patriotic9]

reuben110
Is it good to give power to talibans in Afghanistan because majority of them are pushtoons who are the desends of a Persian jew named Bakhte Nasr.USA is suffering because of those guys whose knoledge about the world is limited to BEER,BASE BALL and BREASTS.The Islamic Extremists we are fighting don't care about who is from what family or what race.They only care about who accepts their Radical Ideology and who doesn't.If you don't agree with me,let the White American Al Qaeeda terrorist Adam Gadahn be the president of USA then see how good he'll be with the people of his race and country.

[mjv2944]

If we were smart we would say "ok boys, its all yours, may be best terroist win". We are in a arew of the world where violence is common place. They will continue until one group dominates. Its time to stop sacrificing our young men & women for these zeros. They are not worth one drop of their blood. Let BP, Shell and the other oil companies put together their on army, I think they can afford it.

[clestes-2009]

billmaturi

it is going to take a lot more deaths and destruction before anything gets done. I think that after Nov, the money Bush keeps asking for to fund the disaster of Iraq, is going to dry up. If the Dems in up in control, they will stop funding it. If not, the continued death rate and public opinion will eventually force even this idiot to see the light. Although he has claimed that US soldiers will stay there as long as he is president....

[billmaturi]

If this don't wake the world up nothing will. American's are over there dieing for THEIR freedom and the judge has the "-----" to tell Sadam, " YOU WERE NOT A DICTATOR ". Thats like saying HITLER wasn't either. I'am a vet from the Navy UDT/SEAL team which served in Cuba, Nam, Iran and much more. I served with PRIDE for my COUNTRY. After this IT'S PAST TIME to bring our troops home and not loose another life over there. Wake up BUSH & all our other elected offical's. Most of AMERICA is tired of this and the poles show it. "GOD BLESS AMERICA". LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT.

[clestes-2009]

Here's a news flash, David Satterfield. The point of no return has passed. There is NO WAY to get an Iraq govn of Sunnis, ****** and Kurds all working together. Too much bloods has been spilled and vengence is ruling the day.

I say it again and again. Please bring our troops home. They do not belong in that hell. The mission of putting a democracy in place has failed for now. (If that was the original mission, which I doubt) Keeping our troops there is accomplishing nothing, absolutely nothing. They cannot do their job of training in the current state of chaos reining now. The most they can do is keep the green zone safe. Not worth getting killed over.

Bring them home and try again. This time WITH the UN, then the chance for success will be higher.

[ronniehm]

Al Maliki is not a Jew; he's a Shiite Muslim, and Hamid Karzai was never an executive for Halliburton.

[reuben110-2009]

Patriotic9,
Al Maliki is a jew, he decends from a jewish tribe in Iraq, Hamid Karzai is a former executive at Halliburton. Stunning appointments, truly.

[snowbrd7]

"We call upon all religious authorities to raise their voices and demand militias be disarmed" - Adnan al-Dulaimi. And will they...no. It's a flawed religion full.

[tank611]

Here's what Senator John McCain had to say:

'Withdrawing before there is a stable and legitimate Iraqi authority would turn Iraq into a failed state, in the heart of the Middle East. We have seen a failed state emerge after U.S. disengagement once before, and it cost us terribly. In pre-9/11 Afghanistan, terrorists found sanctuary to train and plan attacks with impunity. We know that there are today in Iraq terrorists who are planning attacks against Americans. We cannot make this fatal mistake twice.'

http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Newscenter.ViewSpeech&Content_id=1622

[patriotic9]

Iraqi Prime Minister who's practically a Governor from Iran met with Iranian President to discuss their plans against the west.Terrorism at it's peak.Somebody please tell me why we are better off with Saddam Hussain out of power,a secular dictator who benifited christians because he knew that in a muslim country,nobody would like to see a christian being a president.Please don't tell me that he killed his own people who wanted to establish a Radical Islamic government.Do you think it's justified for any other country to invade or bomb USA for the liberation of those young American boys who've been molested and sodomized by American priests in the American churches.