NYT: U.S. Study Paints Somber Portrait of Iraqi Discord

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

snip

The report, 10 pages of briefing points titled "Provincial Stability Assessment," underscores the shift in the nature of the Iraq war three years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Warnings of sectarian and ethnic frictions are raised in many regions, even in those provinces generally described as nonviolent by American officials.

There are alerts about the growing power of Iranian-backed religious Shiite parties, several of which the United States helped put into power, and rival militias in the south. The authors also point to the Arab-Kurdish fault line in the north as a major concern, with the two ethnicities vying for power in Mosul, where violence is rampant, and Kirkuk, whose oil fields are critical for jump-starting economic growth in Iraq.

The patterns of discord mapped by the report confirm that ethnic and religious schisms have become entrenched across much of the country, even as monthly American fatalities have fallen. Those indications, taken with recent reports of mass migrations from mixed Sunni-Shiite areas, show that Iraq is undergoing a de facto partitioning along ethnic and sectarian lines, with clashes — sometimes political, sometimes violent — taking place in those mixed areas where different groups meet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/world/middleeast/09report.html?ex=1302235200&en=b9e01ad73c716b03&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[Ilsa]

1. I think Sabra beat you to the post...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2215889

Lots going on here...important article.

I was prepared to post about three articles today, including from timesonline.com (UK), but everything was already here.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Not surprised.

But like you said "important article." If it gets tossed we can both go kick Sabra's post. :D