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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (67799)	10/1/2005 11:03:34 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Respond to of 81568

A chaotic road to democracy October 1, 2005 George Bush has had another awful week. No sooner had public anger over his tardy response to the hurricane disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi begun to dissipate than events jolted Americans back to his more intractable crisis in Iraq. Three days of anti-war demonstrations in Washington culminated in nationally televised arrests outside the White House, including that of the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq last year. Then the ghosts of Abu Ghraib returned to haunt him. Lynndie England - the soldier who became the symbol of the US occupation's ham-fisted excesses when pictures of her taunting naked, shackled Iraqi prisoners shocked the world - was sent to jail. And back in Iraq terrorist atrocities multiplied, with the US and Britain warning worse is likely in the run-up to the country's constitutional referendum on October 15. True, there was good news. Iraqi and US forces announced they had killed Abu Azzam, described as second-in-command to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the elusive leader of the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq. Azzam is said to have masterminded suicide bombings that have killed hundreds in Baghdad since April. Yet this coalition success was quickly overshadowed: 10 people died in two car bombings in Baqouba, north-east of Baghdad; a woman suicide bomber, in male clothing, killed six people and wounded 30 at an Iraqi army recruiting centre in the town of Tal Afar, near Syria, where the army had claimed a decisive victory over insurgents two weeks earlier; a day later, about 60 people died in three almost simultaneous suicide car bombings in the mostly Shiite town of Balad, north of Baghdad; and three US marines were killed by a roadside bomb in western Iraq. AdvertisementAdvertisement If anything, the political and security implications are even more depressing than the body count. The most chilling assessment came from Major-General Richard Zahner, the top US intelligence officer in Iraq, who thought the Sunni insurgency had effectively been "hijacked" by al-Zarqawi and his terrorists. Ponder the irony. The US, Britain and Australia invaded Iraq partly on the premise, which proved false, that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were in cahoots. Now, it seems the invasion may have produced the nightmarish reality of Iraq replacing Afghanistan as the epicentre of al-Qaeda's global campaign. This month's referendum will be crucial. Should Sunni leaders muster enough no votes in Sunni-dominated areas to block the constitution, it will be a shocking setback to the political process. Yet if the referendum succeeds, allowing elections in December, Sunnis may be even more bitterly alienated, boosting support for the insurgents. Small wonder the US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, this week pulled back from his earlier predictions of "fairly substantial" cuts in American forces next year. smh.com.au