Salon: "Ethnic divisions threaten to derail new Iraqi government"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

"A U.S. Army soldier comforts a child mortally wounded in a car bomb blast in Mosul, Iraq, one of 15 Iraqis injured on Monday in a combined suicide bomb attack."

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/06/ethnic/index.html

May 6, 2005 | Iraq's elected Parliament finally swore in a new Cabinet on Tuesday -- yet another milestone that the Bush administration hoped would represent a decisive turning point in its campaign to remake Iraq. But like the toppling of Saddam's statue, the dictator's capture, the formation of an interim government, the siege of Fallujah, the national elections, and the formation of a new government, this latest development offered little reason for hope that the bloody insurrection would subside.

Years ago, George Bush the elder explained why he did not push on to Baghdad at the end of the first Gulf War: He feared the breakup of the Iraqi state. The most dangerous fissure was and is between Iraq's majority group, the Shiites, and the formerly ascendant Sunnis. Those divisions have now exploded into a horrific guerrilla war in which disaffected Sunnis increasingly target Shiites and Kurds. In the week after the Cabinet was presented to Parliament, Sunni Arab guerrillas went on a bombing spree that left some 200 dead and hundreds more wounded. The Bush administration had hoped that the new, elected government would attract the loyalty of alienated Iraqis, and that as a result the guerrilla war would wind down. Instead, Sunnis are furious that their representation on the Cabinet is still unclear and that their suggestions for Cabinet members have been rejected by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari.

The massive suicide bombing that killed 60 and wounded 150 at a police recruitment station in Irbil Wednesday morning was only one of a string of deadly assaults signaling the resolve of the Sunni Arab guerrillas to keep fighting. While some of the attacks were carried out by fundamentalist holy warriors ("jihadis"), the bulk are probably the work of Baath military men. A Col. Zajay, a Shiite police official in south Baghdad, told the London Times last week, "We have lots of information that the Baathists are regrouping ... They think they can take power again."

President Bush, as usual, tried to put the best possible light on the situation, saying in his April 28 news conference that he believes "we're making really good progress in Iraq" and praising the new government for exemplifying "unity in diversity." Many Iraqis, shell-shocked by the bloody attacks and the unraveling of the Iraqi social fabric, begged to differ. In addition to the massive bombing campaign that greeted the formation of the new government, sectarian strife continued in the mixed Sunni-Shiite areas south of Baghdad. In another alarming development, major rioting broke out Tuesday and Wednesday at Baghdad University between Shiite and Sunni students and professors.

[CWebster]

1. In the early days of the Invasion

there was a photo on the front page of every paper of a soldier cradling an Iraqi child almost everyday. Do you suppose it was a deliberate effort to influence attitudes about our "mission"? Note the above photo is being broadcast everywhere. While the torture and abuse of Iraqis continues unabated, for whose benefit do you suppose this picture is widely disseminated back home--and why?