Oy. Iraq’s Shiite vice president escaped an apparent assassination attempt Monday after a bomb exploded in municipal offices where he was making a speech, knocking him down with the force of the blast that left at least 10 people dead. Adel Abdul-Mahdi was bruised and hospitalized for medical exams, an aide said. Police initially blamed the attack on a bomb-rigged car, but later said the explosives were apparently planted inside the building. The attack sent another message that suspected Sunni militants could strike anywhere despite a major security crackdown across the capital. Continue reading Feel the Surge

I’m sure the citizens of Baghdad will sleep well tonight. About 130 fresh Iraqi troops from the country’s Kurdish north flew into Baghdad on Sunday to join the fight for the nation’s capital with the promise of a $200 bonus, nearly a month’s pay. [snip] The troops represented a fraction of the expected influx of some 8,000 Iraqi reinforcements from the north, the Shiite south and the insurgent stronghold of Anbar province west of Baghdad. The drafting of troops from the north most former Kurdish guerrillas who fought for decades against Saddam Hussein’s regime to participate in the security crackdown … Continue reading Is That A Surge I See Or Do You Have A Roll Of Dimes In Your Pocket?

SOTU Bush-hugger Michele Bachmann has the inside dope on Iraq and Iran. “Iran is the trouble maker, trying to tip over apple carts all over Baghdad right now because they want America to pull out. And do you know why? It’s because they’ve already decided that they’re going to partition Iraq. And half of Iraq, the western, northern portion of Iraq, is going to be called… the Iraq State of Islam, something like that. And I’m sorry, I don’t have the official name, but it’s meant to be the training ground for the terrorists. There’s already an agreement made. They … Continue reading The Islamofascist State of IraqiRan

The son of Shiite leader that Chimpy invited to the White House this past December is detained by US forces in Iraq. US forces have detained Ammar al-Hakim, the son of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders and a supporter of the US-backed government, his office said Friday. “US forces detained Ammar al-Hakim as he was driving back from     Iran. They took him with two guards. There has been lots of communication and the situation is on its way to being resolved,” said an official in Hakim’s office. [snip] Hakim senior is head of … Continue reading The Enemy of My Enemy… No, Wait – The Enemy of My Friend Is My… Um… Won’t Get Fooled Again!

Back on January 10Chimpy cited Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s pledge “that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated” during the surge. Apparently Maliki’s pledge is no longer operative. U.S. troops detained the son of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite politician Friday as he returned to the country from Iran, keeping him in custody for nearly 12 hours before releasing him, Shiite officials said. The U.S. ambassador later apologized. Amar al-Hakim, son of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, was taken into custody at a crossing point and was transferred to a U.S. facility in Kut, according to the elder al-Hakim’s secretary, Jamal … Continue reading No Longer Operative

During yesterday’s radio interivew, I addressed something I’d read about Feith in this Red State piece: Throughout our conversation, Mr. Feith insisted that this entire IG review was based on a misconception. The IG called the Pentagon briefing on Iraq and al Qaida an “intelligence product.” But none of the staffers (from the policy office) who created or presented the briefing thought of it as anything other than a policy product. And no one who received this briefing understood it as an intelligence product. There were only four top officials who received the briefing: Mssrs. Rumsfeld, Tenet, Hadley and Libby. … Continue reading The Feith Defense

In my previous post this morning I forgot about a third country that is ready to bug out of Iraq. In an announcement carefully coordinated with Britain, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Copenhagen that all Danish troops would leave southern Iraq in August. Most of the Danish troops are under British command. Here’s Prime Minister Rasmussen, below, covered in the red paint thrown on him by his countrymen after he announced that Danish troops would be joining Chimpy’s Vanity War in Iraq on March 19, 2003. And what was the Bush Assministration’s to response to the British … Continue reading I Forgot Denmark!