No escape for Iraqis from security nightmares

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/5004794.htm

BAGHDAD, Aug 27 (Reuters) - While Westerners were lounging around a Baghdad hotel on Tuesday night, one Iraqi was fatally shot in the forehead and another took a bullet in the leg just beyond the walls of the swimming pool.

Such violence is not unusual but is likely to make Westerners in Baghdad even more nervous after a truck bomb killed at least 23 people at the U.N. headquarters last week.

Some international aid workers have already left Iraq, fearing their safety cannot be guaranteed.

But most Iraqis -- just as exposed to the lawlessness of postwar Baghdad -- don't have the option of leaving a country still facing bombings, kidnappings and carjackings four months after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

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