While Bush "surges", innocent Iraqis get "purged". Evidence of Sectarian Cleansing in Iraq.

[ck4829]

On a recent afternoon, a convoy of Humvees brought Army Brig. Gen. John Campbell for a look. The deputy commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division did not like what he saw.

To the east of a north-south boulevard the Americans have dubbed Route Spruce, Campbell surveyed the eerie emptiness of an enclave that until recently was populated mainly by Sunnis. It now resembles a ghost town.

"It looks devastated," he told an Associated Press reporter who accompanied him.

On display were rows of abandoned shops, empty homes, piles of debris. All were evidence of the retreat of hope for a reconciling anytime soon between two rival religious sects — Shiites and Sunnis — in a desperate battle for power.

The Sunnis in Sadiyah have been driven away — Campbell called it a "purge" — by encroaching extremists of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that Campbell says is using gangland-style tactics to gain ground. Sunni extremists affiliated with the al-Qaida terrorist group are beginning to slip into the same neighborhood.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070721/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_sectarian_challenge

[alfredo]

1. Ethnic cleansing seems to be a success. The death toll always falls when

you run out of victims.

[libodem]

2. Then we hear the bragging on the news

half of the Baghdad neighborhoods are under our control...that means purged...I guess. What? The people have been run off to that 130 degree desert, with no water? Nice, they can fry. Personally I'd rather take a bullet than die of heat stroke. Hell, gas me it'd quicker. Expletive deleted.