WP:Shrine Bombing as War's Turning Point Debated (analysts say misleading)

[maddezmom]

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 13, 2007; Page A01

Feb. 22, 2006, is the day the Bush administration says everything in Iraq changed.

Before that day, military and administration officials frequently explain, Iraq was moving in the right direction: National elections had been held, and a government was forming. But then the bombing of the golden dome shrine in Samarra derailed that positive momentum and unleashed a wave of brutal sectarian violence.


Even now, more than a year later, the president and other administration officials cite Samarra as a turning point -- "a tragic escalation of sectarian rage and reprisal," President Bush called it in a March 6 news conference. "One of the key changes in Iraq last year," said White House spokesman Tony Snow in January.

Many Iraq specialists and defense analysts contend that this narrative of the mosque bombing is misleading, yet also revealing of how U.S. strategy in Iraq has evolved. Experts say the attack did not begin a civil war but rather confirmed the ongoing deterioration and violence in Iraq -- conditions the White House and the generals had resisted recognizing. In that sense, the bombing destroyed much more than the shrine: It also demolished the positive view of progress in Iraq, leading military and administration officials to a more pessimistic perspective, and eventually to a new U.S. strategy.

Samarra was not a major turning point in the war, said James Miller, a former Pentagon policy official. "The evidence on the record makes that not credible," he said. "The mosque bombing was just gasoline on a fire that already was burning pretty well."

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR2007031201760.html

[kirby]

1. The turning point

was the looting and CPA mismanagement. PBS Frontline about the first year explains it all. The Samarra bombing is just a way to blame others and take no accountability.

[Erika]

2. Look at the link

at www.icasualties.org Says a lot.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. This is one of those prevailing wisdom things that is wrong.

The product of simple minds analyzing complex problems.