Iraq goes backward.Byline: The Register-Guard Operation Together Forward, the joint effort by American and Iraqi forces to secure the city of Baghdad, has been "a disappointment," according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the American commander in the Iraqi capital. How much of a disappointment? Words don't do it justice. How disappointing is a cataclysm? How disappointing is life in hell? On Thanksgiving Day, suspected Sunni insurgents Insurgents, in U.S. history, the Republican Senators and Representatives who in 1909–10 rose against the Republican standpatters controlling Congress, to oppose the Payne-Aldrich tariff and the dictatorial power of House speaker Joseph G. Cannon. killed 215 people in five bombings and two mortar attacks that rocked Baghdad's main Shiite district. The brutal attacks occurred despite a beefed-up U.S. troop presence in Baghdad that was ordered by President Bush in an effort to restore some semblance of order in the world's most dangerous city. Instead of order, there is an escalation of violence and depravity that threatens to engulf en·gulf tr.v. en·gulfed, en·gulf·ing, en·gulfs To swallow up or overwhelm by or as if by overflowing and enclosing: The spring tide engulfed the beach houses. even the fortified fortified (fôrt  ´fīd),adj containing additives more potent than the principal ingredient. enclave of the Green Zone. American and Iraqi forces appear powerless to halt the carnage. Revenge-seeking militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers and burned them alive with kerosene kerosene or kerosine, colorless, thin mineral oil whose density is between 0.75 and 0.85 grams per cubic centimeter. A mixture of hydrocarbons, it is commonly obtained in the fractional distillation of petroleum as the portion boiling off . The gruesome murders took place near an Iraqi army The Iraqi Army is the army of Iraq, active in various forms since the country was formed in the aftermath of World War I. Today, it is a component of the Iraqi Security Forces tasked with assuming responsibility for all Iraqi land-based military operations following the 2003 post where soldiers did nothing to intervene. Elsewhere in the same part of northwest Baghdad, rampaging Shiites blew up four mosques and burned homes in Sunni areas. In the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, 23 people were killed and 43 wounded when explosives detonated outside a car dealership. By early afternoon on Friday, 56 people had been killed across in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say Baghdad is under siege. The 24-hour death toll is among the worst since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. Juan Cole, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. and a strong critic of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, noted on his Informed Comment blog that Thursday's death toll alone in Iraq would be the equivalent, on a comparative population basis, of the deaths of more than 2,500 Americans. The latest carnage forced the almost-ineffectual Iraqi government to close Baghdad airport and implement a curfew that banned pedestrians and cars from the streets until further notice. As Shiite government officials blamed the United States for failing to prevent the recent bombings, serious questions emerged about the scheduled summit between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Jordan next Wednesday. A key political goal of Operation Together Forward was to bolster al-Maliki's government and empower him to disarm the Shiite militias. Right now, even the name Operation Together Forward mocks President Bush and underscores how bankrupt his Iraq policy has been. The question of how to get the United States out of Iraq is rapidly becoming less important than how soon American forces can be brought home. The longer President Bush waits to answer that question, the more he increases the number of U.S. troops who will be killed or dreadfully maimed maim tr.v. maimed, maim·ing, maims 1. To disable or disfigure, usually by depriving of the use of a limb or other part of the body. See Synonyms at batter1. 2. in a futile bloodbath blood·bath also blood bath n. Savage, indiscriminate killing; a massacre. Noun 1. bloodbath - indiscriminate slaughter; "a bloodbath took place when the leaders of the plot surrendered"; "ten days after the that has no military solution. |
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