Will those idiots in the White House, Pentagon and State still claim that things
are improving in Iraq?
Suicide bombers struck four times in Baghdad's Monday morning rush hour, killing 34 people and wounding 224 near the Red Cross offices and police stations, in the city's bloodiest day since Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
Apparently coordinated blasts shook the city after three U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks overnight. An ambulance bomb was used in the Red Cross attack.
Iraq's police chief Ahmad Ibrahim, who is also deputy interior minister, told a news conference 26 of the 34 dead were civilians and eight police. Sixty-five police and 159 civilians were wounded. He did not say if foreigners were killed.
The onset of Ramadan is probably a catalyst for the extra-strength super-sized wave of violence hitting the nation. And it comes, ironically, following Wolfowitz's latest PR "everything is dandy" tour of Iraq (which culminated in two assassination attempts yesterday).
The best Bush can do is trot out that
old pathetic canard: "the attacks mean the resistance is desperate".
"The more progress we make on the ground, the more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity that's available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become," Bush told reporters at the White House.
Right -- the resistance is angry that kids are going to school...
Funny, I remember the same kind of b.s. when I was growing up in El Salvador, with the nation descending into chaos as the government insisted that wave after wave of attacks simply proved the enemy's "desperation".
Fact is, this new wave of violence has demonstrated the Iraq resistance can attack at will, wherever and whenever it wants. It demonstrates it has good intelligence on the ground (if suffering from a bit of a time lag), able to target top US leaders wherever they may be.
It demonstrates that the resistance has some measure of popular support, as it stages spectacular attacks with near impunity. And it demonstrates that the US is nowhere near establishing security in the nation, and that in fact things are spiraling out of control.
This is the legacy of Bush's War.
One last point -- while the GOP was eager to heap praise on the president for the war back in April, notice how twitchy they are about it now. Call it "Bush's War", and see how quickly they fire back -- "Democrats voted for it too".
They are right, of course. Democrats did vote for it, and may this death and destruction weigh on their conscience. I have nothing but contempt for every single "yes" vote on Bush's war resolution. But Republicans weren't so eager to share the credit when things appeared to go well. Bush didn't invite Gephardt to land on the the USS Lincoln with him, "mission accomplished" banner in the background.
Nope. The credit was all Bush's for the taking. And now the blame is still all his, regardless of who supported what.
Billmon
has more on the administration's overuse of the word "desperate".