Imploding Iraq gives Dems more leverage for key Contract 2 tactic

This from Progessive American:

The Boston Globe reported Monday that conservatives, "on the defense over the unpopular war in Iraq, are hoping this week to shift the national security debate to the North Korea missile crisis and to countering terrorism."(Standard Administration tactic: when you blunder, divert attention to some upcoming but unconfirmed blunder, then iterate, iterate). While much of the recent media and administration attention has indeed been focused on the North Korean missile tests, violence around Iraq has spiked and "politicians across the country's political spectrum said months of sectarian killings have turned into civil war." Events in Iraq cannot be ignored for long. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Wednesday morning, acknowledging "there certainly has been an upsurge in sectarian violence." Shortly after he arrived in the capital city, a suicide bomber walked into a Baghdad restaurant and blew himself up, killing seven people and wounding twenty. A recent attempted security crackdown on Baghdad has instead inflamed tensions. "Sectarian violence has escalated as rival Shiite and Sunni militias have turned entire neighborhoods into no-go zones." The Washington Times reported, "The formation of Iraq's new government and the elimination of terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi have failed to produce the hoped-for decrease in violence in Baghdad, as officials try to deal with increasingly deadly Shiite militias." President Jalal Talabani warned that the nation stood "in front of a dangerous precipice." PLAN TO INCREASE BAGHDAD SECURITY HAS INSTEAD FUELED TENSIONS: Among the main topics Rumsfeld said he wanted to discuss on his trip was security in Baghdad, where the three-day death toll has risen well above 100. Yesterday, "about 200 yards outside civilian entrances to the heavily guarded Green Zone government compound in Baghdad, two suicide bombers blew themselves up, followed shortly by an explosion of another bomb, killing 15 civilians and an Iraqi police officer and wounding four other people." Abdul Rahman, a local Baghdad merchant, said, "The scene was terrifying and tragic. ... After I saw this terrible incident, I closed my shop and I went home." There have been many horrifying scenes in recent days around the Iraqi capital, including an account by CNN's Nic Robertson that "a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed." Coinciding with Bush's surprise visit to Iraq in mid-June, Maliki announced Operation Forward Together, a plan to specifically improve security conditions in Baghdad. Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell acknowledged recently that the crackdown has been ineffective. Ambassador Khalilzad said it had not "performed to the level that was expected." And Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman simply stated, "The security plan did not succeed." Baghdad has instead bore witness to the increasing brazenness of the attackers. "This is a new step. A red line has been crossed," said Alaa Makky, a Sunni member of parliament. "People have been killed in the streets; now they are killed inside their homes."

RAPE ACCUSATIONS MAKE A BAD PROBLEM WORSE: "In the past month, new cases in Iraq have led to charges against 12 American servicemen who may face the death penalty in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians." Military officials are warning that "the total of American servicemen charged with capital crimes in the new cases could grow substantially." In the most recent case, Pfc. Steven Green was charged with raping and killing a 14-year old Iraqi girl and three members of her family and then burning down the house, according to FBI and military investigators. Four other soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division have been accused of participating in the rape and murders. A fifth soldier was charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report the crimes. The incident, which is different from the recent atrocities against unarmed Iraqis in Haditha and "deserves a category all to itself," has brought outrage from all corners of Iraq. Iraqi Justice Minister Hashim Abdul-Rahman al-Shebli said, "The ugliness of this crime demands a swift intervention of the U.N. Security Council to stop these violations of human rights and to condemn them so that they will not happen again." Maliki responded by suggesting "the immunity given to members of coalition forces encouraged them to commit such crimes in cold blood. That makes it necessary to review it." That demand "could widen a rift between U.S. and Iraqi authorities." The top U.S. commander in Iraq and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq apologized for the incident and explained that damage was done "to the Iraqi people as a whole." Bush pledged that "absolute justice" would be delivered against the soldiers who committed the crimes. The allegations have unfortunately given insurgents an excuse for their murderous violence. An insurgent group linked to al Qaeda recently released a video showing the mutilation of two U.S. soldiers, "asserting that the soldiers were killed in retaliation" for the rape and murders.