Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Detroit Free Press: Maybe they were miffed about being bumped from the headlines and news shows for a few weeks by Hurricane Katrina.
Whatever their twisted motivation, terrorists have renewed their horrible work on several fronts in Iraq, reminding the world that they are not yet ready to surrender the country to democratic rule.
The body count is staggering. On Wednesday, 160 people were killed and nearly 600 wounded in a dozen coordinated bombings over a nine-hour span in Baghdad. Another 17 people were executed in a village north of the capital. There were a half-dozen attacks on U.S. forces that left 10 soldiers wounded as Iraq went through its second-bloodiest day since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the country's dictatorship in March 2003. Thursday, three suicide car bombings and a roadside bomb killed another 31 people, 23 of them police officers.
The rampage erupted about a month before Iraqis are to vote on a new constitution and amid an American offensive in the northern part of the country aimed at militants who are believed to be sneaking into Iraq from Syria.
Dangerous situation
For Americans, focused for the past few weeks on the domestic disaster Katrina, the explosion of violence is a grim reminder of the unsettled and dangerous situation facing U.S. troops in Iraq. American military spokesman Maj. Gen. Richard Lynch said the trouble was actually "predictable" with the referendum approaching on the constitution.
"Remember," he said, "democracy equals failure for the insurgency."
Unfortunately, predictable clearly does not mean preventable.
The success of the latest attacks, at least if success is measured in casualties inflicted, further undermines the international credibility of the new Iraqi government, which has yet even to gain much acceptance in the Arab world. Not a single Arab nation has opened an embassy in Iraq since the U.S.-backed government was installed.