...where will all this end...?

 

Iraq's deputy prime minister, Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie, was wounded today in a suicide bombing inside Baghdad's heavily fortified green zone, which killed nine other people.

The prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, visited his deputy in hospital later and Mr Zubaie's injuries were not life threatening, an official from the prime minister's office said.

 

"He's wounded but it's not serious," the official told the Reuters news agency.

 

Dhafer al-Ani, a Sunni member of parliament, said Mr Zubaie was in stable condition after surgery to remove shrapnel from his body. He was being treated at a US-run hospital inside the green zone, an American military spokesman added.

 

An aide to Mr Zubaie, a member of the main Sunni Arab political bloc, said he was hit by shrapnel in the stomach and shoulder as he was attending prayers.

 

Nine other people were killed, including one of the deputy prime minister's advisers and several of his guards, and 14 were injured, police said.

 

The bomber blew himself up as Mr Zubaie, one of two deputies to Mr Maliki, and other worshippers were leaving a mosque built inside the courtyard of his house.

 

Mr Zubaie's home is in a residential area of the green zone, behind the foreign ministry.

 

The bombing came a day after a rocket exploded near a news conference in the green zone, causing the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, to duck just minutes after Iraq's prime minister had said the visit showed the city was "on the road to stability".

 

Also today, police said five people were killed and 20 wounded when a car bomb exploded in the Sadr City area of Baghdad.

 

Iraq's Shia-dominated government has been quietly pushing for a greater UN role in the hope that Baghdad was returning to normal six weeks into a joint security crackdown with American forces.

 

"We consider it a positive message to [the] world in which you confirm that Baghdad has returned to playing host to important world figures because it has made huge strides on the road toward stability," the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, told Mr Ban moments before the rocket attack.

 

 

And the idiots in Whitehall and Washington continue to claim that Iraq is NOT descending into anarchy and civil war.... <_<

 

WE caused this sh!t, simple as.... Yes, Saddam was an evil, brutal b/astard... But just how in the hell can this sh!t be considered an improvement....? We've made it worse, a LOT worse....

it may be our fault, the iron grip and fear Saddam had and created held the country together, but we can't just pull out now, and leave them to it -_- The old addage of sorting the mess we started comes to mind

The average citizen was safer under Saddam Hussein than under Bush's rule, we should have left well alone

it may be our fault, the iron grip and fear Saddam had and created held the country together, but we can't just pull out now, and leave them to it -_- The old addage of sorting the mess we started comes to mind

 

Are we 'sorting it out' though..? I dont think we are in the slightest... Our presence in Iraq is about as useful as the American presence in Vietnam in the 60s and early 70s, and look at the sh!te that happened there....

I've been for immediate pullout since before the invasion even BEGAN but Matt Aloud brings up an interesting, rarely considered point. Do we have a moral obligation to try to repair Iraq or at least to bring it to the same point of civility in which it existed pre 2003 before we abandon it?

I've been for immediate pullout since before the invasion even BEGAN but Matt Aloud brings up an interesting, rarely considered point. Do we have a moral obligation to try to repair Iraq or at least to bring it to the same point of civility in which it existed pre 2003 before we abandon it?

 

If anyone should be in there, it should be a UN or Pan-Arab force, not an occupying force from a foreign country... This is what's causing most of the problems, the fact that the forces there just now are seen, rightly or wrongly, as foreign invaders and it merely inflames the situation.. I don't ultimately think that British or US forces are really doing any good out there, the comparison to Vietnam I think is an apt one...

 

Mind you, I wonder if a UN force would do any good either as many people in the region see the UN as merely being the tool of the big nations.... Which, unfortunately, they have a fairly valid reason to think all things considered....

I think Iraq is definitely heading for civil war (if not already there). But Iraq was never a 'country' in the true sense. It was an artificial creation (of the British?). Kurdistan, the Sunni middle and Shia south were held together by Saddam's dictatorship. Take him and his iron rule away and they were always likely to descend into tribal squabbles.

 

Unfortunately I can't see an end to all this anytime soon, no matter what 'peace keeping' force is put in place. I'm beyond pessimistic about Iraq. :cry:

I think it's a bit ridiculous to even attempt to keep Iraq together, it is clearly a failed state... It should be split into three like Yugoslavia was... The north could be an independent Kurdistan (it pretty much is already and has more or less been functioning as such since the no-fly zone was introduced after the first Gulf Oil War), while the rest of it should be split into Sunni and Shia States.... I think this is really the only realistic option...

 

An independent Kurdistan would also have the benefit of perhaps stopping Kurdish "terrorism" in Turkey.... Not that I actually believe that it is any such thing, the Kurds are merely retaliating against quite brutal Turkish oppression....

I actually agree with you. Good Lord. :o

I actually agree with you. Good Lord. :o

 

Mind you, it'll never happen, because if the country were to split like that, then, bugger me, it would be like America and Britain were WRONG :o :o Shock! Horror! Yeah, our leaders would probably rather have Iraq descending into an ever spiralling state of sectarian violence than actually admit that we just may have been wrong to interfere in the first fukkin' place.... <_< B-Liar's "Legacy" would then be that he helped cause a sovereign nation to fracture into three sectarian parts each fuelled by a hatred of the others... Not exactly what he had in mind really is it...

 

Yugoslavia happened as a result of a natural process of brimming ethnic tensions, it was internal factors which caused the problems there, Iraq's current sectarian problems were precipitated by the interference of external forces, whether it be UK/US troops or Al Qaeda terrorists... The facts are there was NO Al Qaeda presence in Iraq before the 2003 invasion, Bin Laden and his band of merry murderers couldn't make any headway at all in Iraq because of Saddam's iron grip.... We did exactly what Bin Laden wanted us to do..... <_<

 

So, Saddam possibly the lesser of two evils...?