Another
horrible day in Iraq.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 24 - A suicide truck bomb exploded at a police station today in the middle of a raging sandstorm in eastern Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens of others, Iraqi officials said. The attack came on a day when Sunni Arab leaders involved in drafting the new constitution were in negotiations over an end to their boycott of the process.
The American military said it had received reports of at least 40 deaths in the explosion.
The bomb struck in the early afternoon, as a sandstorm swirled around the capital, cloaking buildings and streets with a thick layer of grit. The driver of the truck, loaded with 500 pounds of explosives, rammed into concrete barricades outside the station before the vehicle burst into a ball of fire, incinerating people standing nearby and peppering them with shrapnel, witnesses said. Many of the victims were believed to be police officers.
The Bush administration continues to argue that the political process of constitution writing will engage the Sunni and hasten the end of the insurgency. The Bush administration has its head in the sand.
But the involvement of Sunni Arabs in writing the constitution has done little to dampen the violence. Furthermore, questions hover around the participation of the Sunni Arab writers, who are still boycotting the constitutional committee because of the assassinations of two colleagues last week.
Today, one of the two Sunni Arabs not boycotting the 71-member constitutional committee said he was incensed over a recent draft of the document that had language favoring Shiite Arabs and their religious leaders....
The 14 Sunni writers boycotting the drafting process met late this afternoon to discuss the terms by which they would return to the table. They have made far-reaching demands of the mostly Shiite and Kurdish drafting committee. One demand, to start an international investigation into the killings of the two Sunnis last week, is considered absurd by the Shiites and Kurds.
The Sunnis have said they want such an investigation because Shiite militias sanctioned by the government may have been involved in the assassinations. Such rhetoric is exacerbating the civil conflict that is raging across parts of Iraq, pitting armed Shiites against Sunnis. After the Musayyib bombing, the top Shiite cleric in Iraq called for the Shiite-led government to take steps to prevent "mass annihilation."
Meanwhile, more people die. Horrible, just horrible.