Iraq Edges Closer to Open Civil Warfare

[cal04]

Iraqi authorities discovered at least 87 corpses — men shot to death execution-style — as
Iraq edged closer to open civil warfare. Twenty-nine of the bodies, dressed only in underwear, were dug out of a single grave Tuesday in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.

The bloodshed appeared to be retaliation for a bomb and mortar attack in the Sadr City slum that killed at least 58 people and wounded more than 200 two days earlier.

Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, meanwhile, told The Associated Press security officials had foiled a plot that would have put hundreds of al-Qaida men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies, as well as the Iraqi government.

A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060314/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_060314201834

[uppityperson]

1. heard this on NPR today

It all makes me sick.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. No, that's silly. Just ask the White House or the Pentagon.

Everything's just hunky-dunky over in our new colony. The insurgency has "failed", the Iraqis adore us and want us to stay forever, the new government is very popular, and we control part of Baghdad.

Why must you bring up those durned corpses all the time?

[Virginia Dare]

3. "Edging closer?" Try half-way down the cliff. EOM

[Swede]

4. Is it edging closer to that corner we keep hearing about?

87 corpses is just the beginning of this catastrophe.