Bomb Explosion in Najaf; At Least 95 Dead
Among the Dead is Shiite Cleric

A powerful car bomb tore through a crowded street next to Iraq's most sacred Shiite Muslim shrine today, killing at least 95 people, including an influential cleric, and deepening tensions among a Shiite majority already riven by factional disputes.

The bomb was detonated soon after Friday prayers ended, a moment when the narrow streets and dun-hued markets of the holy city were teeming with pilgrims, worshippers and shoppers. It appeared to have been aimed at Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, the son of one of Iraq's greatest clerics and the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who had returned to Iraq in May after 23 years in exile.
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Assassination in Najaf

Tin-foil hat theory of my own: Al Qa’ida operatives, who are Sunni, did this in a bid to spark a civil war, which would embroil U.S. troops and tie them down when they might be needed in South Korea, Indonesia, Afghanistan, etc. The attack also aims to show the Arab world that American troops aren’t up to providing security and can be put on the defensive. This will embolden jihadis and give other nations yet another reason to withhold additional troops. All this means America will likely remain pretty much on its own in Iraq and her ability to respond to threats around the world will be negatively impacted. Instead of flypaper for terrorists, Iraq is a tarbaby for America.

This could be the equivalent of the assassination of the Archuduke Franz Ferdinand that sparked World War I — although on national scale, rather than a global one. The probability of civil war — with American troops caught in the middle — just spiked.
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The Ayatollah Sleeps With the Fishes

The assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, on the steps one of Shi'a Islam's holiest mosques no less, is more than another terrorist atrocity, it's the latest sign that Iraq is gradually slipping out of control -- not just of the Coalition, but of anybody.

Whoever did this -- and my money is on Al Qaeda -- understands extremely well the effect these kind of high-profile attacks can have on a strategic situation as fragile and inherently unstable as the one facing the Americans in Iraq.

The U.N. bombing was a message to outsiders: The U.S. cannot protect you. The Najaf bombing appears to be a message to the Shi'a: Not only can't the U.S. protect you from us, they can't protect you from yourselves, either.
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The next three are from Riverbend at Baghdad Burning.

Chaos

“[Iraq] is not a country in chaos and Baghdad is not a city in chaos.” – Paul Bremer

Where is this guy living? Is he even in the same time zone??? I’m incredulous… maybe he's from some alternate universe where shooting, looting, tanks, rape, abductions, and assassinations aren’t considered chaos, but it’s chaos in *my* world.

Ever since the occupation there have been 400 females abducted in Baghdad alone and that is only the number of recorded abductions. Most families don’t go to the Americans to tell about an abduction because they know it’s useless. The male members of the family take it upon themselves to search for the abducted female and get revenge if they find the abductors. What else is there to do? I know if I were abducted I’d much rather my family organize themselves and look for me personally than go to the CPA.

By BBC’s accounts there are 70 cars a day being hijacked in Baghdad alone…

And now we’ve just had some shocking news- Mohammed Baqir Al-Hakim was assassinated in the holy city of Najaf! Mohammed Baqir Al-Hakim was the head of SCIRI (Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq). They don’t know who was behind it, but many believe it is one of the other Shi’a religious factions. There has been some tension between Al-Sadir’s followers and Al-Hakim’s followers. Another cleric, Al-Sistani, also had some interesting things to say against Al-Hakim…
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The Promise and the Threat

Yesterday, I read how it was going to take up to $90 billion to rebuild Iraq. Bremer was shooting out numbers about how much it was going to cost to replace buildings and bridges and electricity, etc.

Listen to this little anecdote. One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad- we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.

As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.

Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.

A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!
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The Opposite Direction
The Scene: Family Living Room
The Mood: Gloomy

We were sitting around- two families… ours and my uncle’s. Adults were sitting neatly on couches and us ‘kids’ sprawled out on the cool ‘kashi’ (tiles) on the floor, watching tv. Everyone was feeling depressed because we had just seen Nada Domani (head of the Red Cross in Iraq) telling the world they had decided to pull out some of their personnel and send them to Jordan because they were expecting attacks.

I am praying that whoever tipped them off was very wrong. Who would attack the Red Cross? Everyone needs the Red Cross… The Red Cross isn’t simply administering aid in the form of medication or food, they are acting as mediators between the POWS and detainees and the CPA. Before the Red Cross got involved, the families of the detainees knew nothing about them. During raids or at checkpoints, people would be detained (mainly men and boys) and they would simply disappear. Relatives of the detainees would stand for hours in front of the hotels where there were American security authorities begging for some information- some clue- as to where they could find a father, an uncle, a son...

What will we do without the Red Cross?
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Where is Raed ?

Our house was searched by the Americans. That happened almost ten days ago. I wasn’t home, but my mother called the next day a bit freaked out.

They came at around 12 midnight they were apparently supposed to do a silent entrance and surprise the criminal Ba’athi cell that was in my parents house, unfortunately for them our front gate does a fair amount of rattling so my brother heard that and opened the door and saw a couple of soldiers climbing on our high black front gate. When the silent entrance tactic failed they resorted to shouty entrance mode. So they shouted at him telling him that he should get down on his knees, which he did. He actually was trying to help them open the door, but whatever. Seconds later around 25 soldiers are in the house my brother, father and mother are outside sitting on the ground and in their asshole-ish ways refused to answer any questions about what was happening. My father was asking them what they were looking so that he can help but as usual since you are an Iraqi addressing an American is no use since he doesn’t even acknowledge you as a human being standing in front of him. They (the Americans) have a medic with them and he seems to be the only sane person amongst them, my brother tells me they were kids all of them. Anyway so my brother and father start talking to the medic and he tells them what this is about. They have been “informed” that there are daily meetings the last five days, Sudanese people come into our house at 9am and stay till 3pm, we are a probable Ansar cell. My father is totally baffled, my brother gets it. These are not Sudanese men they are from Basra the “informer” is stupid enough to forget that there is a sizeable population in Basra who are of African origin. And it is not meetings these 2 (yes only two) guys have here, they are carpenters and they were repairing my mom’s kitchen. Way. To. Go. You have great informers.
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U.S. failures in Iraq set stage for deeper trouble

In only the last week, the war in Iraq has entered a phase characterized by two amazingly contradictory developments.

First, it is generally accepted (except by the war's avid authorities) that the reasons for invading Iraq were false. Second, the war party around the White House and the Pentagon are responding to their incredible failures of judgment not by modifying their policies in the Middle East, but by doing more and still more of the same. And in one of those bizarre turns of history, their acts have brought them (and us) within a hair's breadth of creating exactly the situation they claimed forced us to go to war in the first place.
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Finally, the idea is creeping in that, looking at the entire Middle East, the next "solution" will be to put American troops into Israel to fight Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups. (The usually supremely rational Republican Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) brought this up on television recently.)

Such an act, of course, would pit the United States irrevocably against the entire Arab and Islamic world--and encourage and create anti-American terrorism on a scale yet unseen.

In Iraq, American authorities have become so desperate for information about the country they pretend to rule that, after foolishly disbanding the Iraqi army and leaving tens of thousands of men roaming the streets, they are recruiting the hated intelligence agents and torturers of the Saddam Hussein government, the Mukhabarat , to work with us.

This administration shows no indication of changing its ways; thus the situation can only grow worse.

Perhaps the only hope lies in the story going around town that President Bush has told the Pentagon he wants "no more American dead" after next March. By then, the electoral campaign will be well under way, and perhaps zealotry will give way to reality--or at least to a change in administration.
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  thanks to Eschaton