Iraq cancels peace talks after scores more die (The Guardian )

[Up2Late]

Iraq cancels peace talks after scores more die

· Indefinite delay is blow to credibility of government
· Militia kills 46 Sunnis after 17 Shia found beheaded

Michael Howard in Irbil and agencies in Baghdad
Monday October 16, 2006
The Guardian

The unremitting wave of sectarian violence that has greeted the Muslim holy month of Ramadan claimed scores more Iraqi lives at the weekend, as authorities in Baghdad announced the indefinite postponement of a conference of political leaders seen as crucial to quickly diminishing hopes for national reconciliation.

In a terse statement from the ministry for national dialogue, the government said the reconciliation conference, which had been scheduled for this Saturday in Baghdad, would be delayed until further notice for "emergency reasons".

The cancellation is a further blow to the credibility of the national unity government of Nuri al-Maliki. The embattled prime minister has come under intense pressure from the US and Britain, as well as ordinary Iraqis, to halt the communal violence and the activities of armed militias and death squads. In the weekend's most vicious act of score-settling between the Shia and Sunni Arabs, at least 63 people were killed in the town of Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

On Friday, police said the decapitated bodies of 17 Shia labourers had been found in an orchard near the town, which has a mixed Shia-Sunni population but lies in a majority Sunni area. In apparent retaliation, at least 46 Sunni Arab men were reportedly killed on Saturday and Sunday, as heavily armed, black-clad men described by one police source as being from the al-Mahdi militia of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr set up fake checkpoints in the town, stopping vehicles and hauling out anyone suspected of being a Sunni.

(more at link) <http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1923136,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1>

[TomInTib]

1. I think we should give them another six months and see what gives

:sarcasm:

FUBAR

"Oh, mama, could this really be the end?"
To be stuck in the sands of Iraq
With the Vietnam Blues again?

[krispos42]

2. Just what the defense contractors need

And standard operating procedures for the Bush administration. No talk, all violence.

[aquart]

3. Civil War is never civil.

[rodeodance]

4. things are just getting worse for the Iraqi people.

[rodeodance]

5. k and R

[katinmn]

6. Last throes?

[Up2Late]

7. kick n/t

:kick:

[gratuitous]

8. Here in the land of the free

This is being sold as the Baghdad government is going to wait a little while before moving to disarm the militias. Trying to make it sound like there's some kind of a choice here as to just when they're going to disarm the militias. They could do it today, but you know, with all this paperwork piled up, maybe it can wait until tomorrow, or next week. But we'll get those militias disarmed, just you wait.

Meanwhile, where journalism is still practiced, the more realistic assessment is bruited about, that the government of Iraq has no credibility with the people it's supposed to be governing. Baghdad Bob is starting to look like a paragon of honesty next to these guys.