Battle for Baghdad 'has already started'...

[bridgit]

'The battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims for control of Baghdad has already started, say Iraqi political leaders who predict fierce street fighting will break out as each community takes over districts in which it is strongest.

"The fighting will only stop when a new balance of power has emerged," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, said. "Sunni and Shia will each take control of their own area." He said sectarian cleansing had already begun.

Many Iraqi leaders now believe that civil war is inevitable but it will be confined, at least at first, to the capital and surrounding provinces where the population is mixed. "The real battle will be the battle for Baghdad where the Shia have increasing control," said one senior official who did not want his name published. "The army will disintegrate in the first moments of the war because the soldiers are loyal to the Shia, Sunni or Kurdish communities and not to the government." He expected the Americans to stay largely on the sidelines.' http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article353501.ece

whatever you may have thought the war was up until now...it is all going to change

[misternormal]

1. The scary part is, my friend...

Bushco will pick a side. I am not certain which side, but one will be picked... Nothing good can come of our continued presence in Iraq.

Bring the troops home now... If it ever was before, it surely is not our fight now.

[bridgit]

2. that sounds about right...

though we will side with the Shiite imo then all hell will break loose

[w13rd0]

3. The Bush spokespeople...

...have already made it readily apparent that they pick the Kurds. In any three way conflict, they've always favored the Kurds, even though the northern Kurdish areas are where that camp was prior to the invasion. You know, that camp we didn't bomb because Bush didn't want to eliminate one of the pretexts for invasion.

[bridgit]

4. sure, plus the kurds are in a state of relative economic calm already...

capitalizing on their oil fields = bush loves oil fields, hates not being able to pump oil in between bent & twisted pipeline

[xchrom]

5. what can anyone expect from war created out of

some beknoghted corporatist wet dream?

it's been a civil war for a long time -- it's just the bombing of the mosque that got the attention of the corporate controlled media -- they HAD to report it -- and they couldn't ignore the ''civil war'' reality it represented.

[bridgit]

6. true as well...