I though once we got rid of Sadam, er, had elections, er setup a
government, er, wrote a constitution - oh heck, I give up - that they
were supposed to welcome us with flowers and candy. What happened?
The Republican leadership of our country relly screwed it up, that's
what. These bums need to be drummed out of office.
---
Bodies of 23 Men Found in Baghdad
By John Ward Anderson and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; 4:11 AM
BAGHDAD, March 8 -- The bodies of 23 men who had been strangled or shot
were found in two locations in Baghdad Wednesday morning, with 18
discovered aboard an abandoned bus in a predominantly Sunni area of the
capital, police said.
All of the victims on the bus were found with their hands tied by rope,
according to an official in the in the Baghdad police operations room
who would not be quoted by name. He said 15 of the victims, including
the driver of the bus, had been strangled and three had been shot in the
back of the head.
The bus, a 21-seat Coaster, was found in an intersection between Amirya
and Khadra Sunni, two Sunni neighborhoods in western Baghdad.
Five more bodies, their hands tied in front and each fatally shot, were
found in Kasraw Atash, an industrial area of cars shops and iron works
in northeast Baghdad, the police official said. The bodies were found in
a shallow hole in an area away from the main streets, he said.
The discovery of executed people -- sometimes from an entire family,
often with their hands bound, their mouths gagged and shot in the head
-- has become commonplace.
Sunni Arab leaders allege that the killings are being carried out by
"death squads" from the country's Shiite-led Interior Ministry, a charge
denied by the government.
The slayings are contributing to a cycle of sectarian bloodshed that has
increased across the country since the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered
Shiite mosque in the town of Samarra.
Wednesday's discoveries came as Iraq's political parties continued
wrangling over the formation of a new government.
The ruling coalition of Shiite religious parties tried Tuesday to delay
the first meeting of parliament, scheduled for Sunday, to have more time
to line up support for its nominee for prime minister.
President Jalal Talabani announced on Monday that the new National
Assembly would have its first meeting on March 12, the deadline set by
the constitution. But leaders of the Shiites' United Iraqi Alliance, who
have the largest bloc in the 275-member parliament elected in December,
said they were lobbying Talabani to postpone the first session for
perhaps a week. No decision had been made, they said.
Iraq's parliament and government frequently ignore deadlines set by law,
with few if any consequences. But Iraqi and U.S. officials have warned
that delays in forming a government could intensify the factional
tensions already gripping the country and might intensify sectarian
violence.
Haitham al-Husseini, a spokesman for the leader of the Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the largest parties in the
Shiite alliance, said the coalition had asked Talabani for the delay and
was waiting for his response. The postponement was necessary, he said,
"to have more time for talks and discussions to achieve an agreement
among the political blocs on the issues of the prime ministerial
candidate and the presidential candidate."
The Shiites nominated transitional Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari to
continue in office when the next government is formed. But Jafari is
opposed by Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties in particular for what they
see as his lackluster record in taming violence and speeding up
reconstruction.
"There must be an agreement among the main political blocs, especially
the United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdistan coalition, on the basic
issues of forming the new government" before the parliament convenes,
said a spokesman for Jafari, Abdul Razzaq Kadhumi.
Meanwhile, an Interior Ministry official, who would not be quoted by
name, said the slaying Monday of Maj. Gen. Mubdar Hatim Hazya
al-Dulaimi, the senior commander of Iraqi troops in Baghdad, was carried
out by a sniper who shot the general as he was getting out of his
vehicle. Dulaimi, one of the highest-ranking officers to be killed in
the three-year conflict here, died from a single shot to the head, the
ministry official said. No other people were injured, he said.
The incident, which is under investigation by Iraq's army, raised the
possibility that the people involved had inside information about
Dulaimi's activities. "The gunmen had very precise information," a
Defense Ministry official told the Reuters news agency.
Also Tuesday, the senior British troop commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Nick
Houghton, said in an interview with London's Daily Telegraph newspaper
that he hoped British troops would be out of Iraq by the summer of 2008,
with withdrawals beginning as early as this spring. U.S. politicians and
military officials have avoided setting a timetable for pulling out,
saying it could fuel the insurgency.
"There is a fine line between staying too long and leaving too soon,"
Houghton said, according to the newspaper. "A military transition over
two years has a reasonable chance of avoiding the pitfalls of
overstaying our welcome but gives us the opportunity of consolidating
the Iraqi security forces."
He said the timetable would work only if Iraqi leaders formed a national
unity government and if sectarian tensions did not worsen, the paper said.
Al-Jazeera television broadcast videotape Tuesday showing three of four
kidnapped activists from the group Christian Peacemakers Teams who
disappeared Nov. 26. The fourth captive -- Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook,
Va. -- was not shown on the 25-second tape. A statement that purportedly
accompanied the tape said the hostages would be killed unless all Iraqi
prisoners were released from Iraqi and U.S. prisons, but it did not set
a deadline.
Violence continued across Iraq on Tuesday, killing more than 15 people.
Gunmen fired at the office of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the city
of Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing three workers
and wounding another, local police reported. A police officer was killed
when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol in central Baqubah,
according to police Lt. Col. Adnan Lafta, and in the afternoon, two
Iraqi soldiers were killed by a car bomb in Khalis, about 10 miles
northwest of Baqubah.
Three Iraqi police officers were killed in an ambush in Baiji, 120 miles
north of Baghdad. In Baghdad, two police officers were killed and three
wounded when a car bomb struck their patrol, and a guard reportedly was
killed in an attack on a Sunni mosque in the western part of the capital.
Two roadside bombs targeting U.S. troops in Baghdad killed one bystander
and injured five.
Special correspondents Hassan Shammari in Baqubah and Saad Sarhan in
Najaf contributed to this report.
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