Pat Dollard

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The Iraq war is over you say? We need to begin “normalization,” you say? A lot of good it’s apparently doing, Mr. President. I await your press conference where you will say you’re gonna do absolutely nothing about it.

Update:

BAGHDAD (AP) – Iraq’s prime minister has blamed Sunni insurgents for a wave of deadly bombings in Baghdad and says the Iraqi government must re-evaluate security to confront the challenge.

Nouri al-Maliki’s statement is the first government acknowledgment of security failings following an increase of attacks since the June 30 withdrawal of U.S. forces from cities.

Times Online:

At least 95 people have been killed and hundreds injured by a series of co-ordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad today.

In the deadliest attack in Iraq this year, and the most audacious one in the capital for several more, truck and car bombs and mortar fire were directed against the main centres of power. The targets included the ministries of finance, foreign affairs, health and housing, as well as the Parliament and Cabinet buildings. Also hit was a checkpoint on the approach roads to the fortified Green Zone.

“95 people were killed and 563 wounded,” an Interior Ministry official said this afternoon. The largest explosion was a truck bomb across the street from the Foreign Ministry, just outside the Green Zone, which is reported to have killed up to 59 people and injured 250. The force of the blast flattened the compound wall and blew concrete slabs off the front of the 10-storey block, killing people working inside the building and devastating cars and bystanders for hundreds of metres around.

It left a crater in the road three metres deep and 10 metres wide, full of dozens of burned and twisted cars and a few charred bodies. Other nearby buildings were also damaged, including the Parliament which lies inside the Green Zone. Water tanks collapsed on nearby houses, sending water gushing through people’s homes.

“I was in my home with my family when the roof collapsed on us,” said Hamid, 46, who lives a few hundred metres away from the Foreign Ministry. “The government promised us security would return but where is the security?”

Blast walls surrounding the Foreign Ministry compound, which might have limited the devastation, were removed two months ago. The move was part of a process of “normalisation” by the Iraqi government, after US troops withdrew from Iraqi cities on June 30.

Nobody has so far claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, but it is likely to have been carried out by Sunni extremists trying to undermine the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in order to re-ignite the sectarian warfare of two years ago.

A steady escalation of attacks since the US troop withdrawals has sparked fears of a resurgence of violence ahead of next year’s national elections.

Today is the sixth anniversary of a truck bombing that hit the United Nations compound in Baghdad, killing 22 people including special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

The carnage began in midmorning, when a massive truck bomb detonated near the Finance Ministry in northern Baghdad. Reports of the death toll vary between eight and 28.

Minutes later it was followed by the even larger truck blast near the Foreign Ministry. Around the same time mortars struck inside and outside the fortified Green Zone, where foreign embassies and most government departments are based.

Another vehicle bomb, this time in a car, targeted a joint Iraqi police and army patrol just outside the Finance Ministry, killing at least eight people and wounding 22, a police official said.

Meanwhile a car bomb in the commercial area of western Baghdad’s Baiyaa district killed two people and wounded 16, while a bombing in the commercial district of Bab al-Muadham killed six people and wounded 24, authorities said. It is feared that more bodies may be buried in the rubble.

“We accuse the Baathist alliance of executing these terrorist operations,” said Major General Qassim Atta, the spokesman for the Iraqi Army’s Baghdad operations, referring to the party of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s executed former dictator.

Among the buildings hit in the attack was the Rasheed Hotel on the edge of the Green Zone, a popular choice with foreign visitors.

John Tipple, a UK solicitor, said: “The windows were blown out and the doors were taken out, even the door frames went. If I had been in my room at the time I would have been seriously injured or worse. Everything is locked down now. Nobody can move anywhere, nobody is getting in or out. Even our security team cannot move.”

The attacks – shortly before Muslims are due to begin the holy fasting month of Ramadan later this week – pushed the city to a standstill as security forces shot into the air and closed off roads, while ambulances struggled to make progress amid traffic jams.

Violence had been on the rise in the last few weeks with several attacks in the outskirts of Baghdad and in the north of the country. But today’s coordinated bombings took place in some of the best protected areas of the city. This is a major challenge to the government ahead of national elections in less than six months.