U.K. Official: Iraq Likely To Split Up
A confidential report from Britain's outgoing ambassador to Iraq has warned that the country is sliding toward civil war and is likely to divide eventually along ethnic lines, according to a British news report Thursday.
The parting assessment from Ambassador William Patey, who left his diplomatic post in Baghdad last week, came in a memo to top British officials, including Prime Minister Tony Blair and military commanders.
"The prospect of a low-intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy," the BBC quoted Patey's memo as saying.
Patey said Iraq's "position is not hopeless," but predicted Iraq could remain volatile for the next decade.
He said even President Bush's "lowered expectation" of a government that can sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself "must remain in doubt."
Meanwhile, in ongoing violence in Iraq, at least 12 people were killed and 29 injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded in the center of the capital Thursday. At least 13 other people were killed or found dead in various parts of the country.
In other developments:
The motorcycle attack near Rusafi Square in the Rashid Street shopping area apparently targeted fruit and vegetable vendors and commercial stalls, said police Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali. He said the bomb was hidden in a parked motorcycle.
Several shops caught fire and many of the victims were seen being driven in private cars to hospitals as ambulances were obstructed by concrete road blocks and razor wires.
The motorcycle was blown to bits, its front wheel assembly hurled several meters (feet) away. A mixture of oil and blood formed small pools on the ground, which was littered with peaches and other fruit. Cardboard boxes that had held the fruit were strewn everywhere.
A taxi driver said he saw the motorcycle exploding and hitting a vegetable vendor and two stalls run by two brothers. "One sold tea and the other sold cigarettes. I saw a woman burning," said the man who left the scene without identifying himself.
Also Thursday, gunmen shot to death four people in separate incidents in Baghdad, Amarah, Mosul and Basra, police said. And the bodies of nine men were found floating in separate places in the Tigris River, police and morgue officials said. At least two of the bodies were blindfolded, bound and shot.
On Wednesday, sectarian and political violence claimed at least 53 lives, including 11 young soccer players and spectators who died when two bombs exploded in a field in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. More than 70 people were killed on Tuesday.
According to figures compiled from Iraqi security and health department figures, more than 1,000 civilians, 135 members of security forces and 143 insurgents were killed nationwide in July. In addition, 1,800 civilians were injured.
The surge in sectarian violence has prompted the U.S. command to send at least 3,700 American soldiers from the northern city of Mosul to reclaim the capital's streets from Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, rogue police, criminals and freelance gunmen.
U.S. officials have been pressing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to disband the Shiite militias and make overtures to Sunni insurgent groups.
However, the militias draw strength from the disorder they help create because many Iraqis are losing confidence in the police and army, preferring to rely on gunmen from their own sect for protection.