Iraq Gone Mad

[acmavm]

http://villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/2007/04/iraq_gone_mad.php

<snip>

posted: 8:38 AM, April 15, 2007 by Harkavy



Welcome to the Green Zone! A typical scene after a homemade bomb exploded at Gate 3 of Baghdad's most heavily fortified area.



Is it official yet? Can we finally call what's going on in Iraq a civil war?

Sunnis and Shiites (and their various factions) have been blowing each other up for some time now, and many people have called this a civil war for quite a while.

Now, thanks to Ned Parker's report in this morning's Los Angeles Times, we have proof:

Suspicious of Iraq's CIA-funded national intelligence agency, members of the Iraqi government have erected a "shadow" secret service that critics say is driven by a Shiite Muslim agenda and has left the country with dueling spy agencies.
Parker notes that the CIA funds the government's official spy agency, INIS. That's run by Sunnis. Now there's a Shiite agency that's spying, no doubt, on the spies. What a Mad situation (apologies to Cold War chronicler Antonio Prohías).

Is this a surprise? No. As I pointed out in May 2005, "Iraq's developing civil war couldn't have surprised the Pentagon." That's because the War Department's own James A. Russell pointed it out in June 2002 in the excellent journal Strategic Insights, published by the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Contemporary Conflict, based in Monterey, California. Russell's piece, "Shibboleth Slaying in a Post-Saddam Iraq," noted:

The makeup of Iraq makes it difficult to envision anything but a Sunni-led minority ruling through coercion and force. So if not Saddam, then who and what? Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds present contending histories and circumstances that limit their ability to cooperate in a more representative form of democratic government. Each of these groups has more of an interest in governing themselves than in cooperating with each other.
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[TheCowsCameHome]

1. That picture looks like Bush's Iraq plan

If there ever was one in the first place.