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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (41100)	4/2/2004 1:03:27 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

L...I wonder if Ashcroft has appeared..and.. IF not...Why..? T

To: lurqer who wrote (41100)	4/2/2004 1:05:02 PM
From: lurqer	Respond to of 89467

Atrocity in Fallujah may prove turning point for US Rupert Cornwell Politicians and commentators are wondering, as new violence erupted in Iraq yesterday, whether Wednesday's murder of four Americans in Fallujah will prove a turning point in US involvement with Iraq, just as the similar murder of an American soldier ultimately led to withdrawal from Somalia 11 years ago. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, television in the United States avoided the most gruesome images. But yesterday, no less sober a publication than the New York Times ran a large front-page picture of two charred and mutilated bodies hanging from the bridge, surrounded by a crowd of jubilant Iraqis. Other media outlets followed suit, driving the unexpurgated savagery of the fate of the four contractors into the consciousness of the public. Yesterday brought no respite to the violence around the city that has become symbol of resistance to US occupation. Three American soldiers were injured when a roadside bomb exploded close to a troop convoy. In Ramadi, west of the city, a car bomb at a market killed six Iraqi civilians and wounded four others. The official line is that Wednesday's incident has only reinforced Washington's determination to see Iraq through to a successful conclusion, and that its perpetrators would be caught and punished. In Baghdad, Paul Bremer, the head of the coalition authority, described the killings as "despicable, inexcusable and barbaric", and "a violation ... of the foundations of a civilisation". The deaths of the four contractors, he promised, "will not go unpunished". Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, said yesterday during a visit to Germany that the US would not be "run out" of Iraq. He said the US had the ability to fight its enemies and defeat them, and argued that, in war, "it does sometimes take the loss of life to achieve a noble purpose". Less openly acknowledged is the fact that the stakes - in terms of America's credibility, and its global diplomatic and military strategy - are far higher than they were in 1993, when a US peacekeeping mission in Somalia ended a few weeks after a mob dragged the corpse of a US serviceman through Mogadishu, the capital. John McCain, the Republican Senator, said: "Somalia was terrible, but we could walk away." Then, US national security was not threatened but, he said, "we cannot afford to lose this". The Fallujah episode, coupled with the near simultaneous death of five US soldiers in an ambush by insurgents, has brought home how dangerous that part of Iraq has become. The jubilant crowds around the mutilated bodies of the four civilians have brutally shown to Americans how much the US is detested, at least in the so-called Sunni Triangle: the stronghold of Saddam Hussein's regime. It has also given lie to claims by the Pentagon that the attacks, which have taken the lives of more than 460 US soldiers since the war ended, were mainly the work of foreign terrorists. Those who were cheering were manifestly not foreigners, but ordinary Iraqi inhabitants of Fallujah. The attacks, moreover, can only cast doubt on the claim of US generals in Iraq that this "mild uptick" in insurgent activity is having only a "negligible impact" on the reconstruction of the country. Before Wednesday's attack, public doubts about the war were growing. The proportion of Americans who believe it was right to attack Iraq had fallen to little more than 50 per cent, compared with 70 per cent or more during and immediately after the invasion. But a CBS-New York Times poll last month found that, by a 51 to 42 margin, the American public did not believe the war was worth the loss of US lives and the financial cost: $160bn (£86bn) and counting. Many experts argue that the public is more inured to violence since the harsh awakening of Mogadishu. But, as the election campaign intensifies, the White House must be wondering how many more casualties public opinion will tolerate before the national mood changes. news.independent.co.uk lurqer