25 killed as Iraq bloodshed rages
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tuesday March 20, 3:40 AM
*25 killed as Iraq bloodshed rages*
Bombings and shootings killed 25 people in Iraq on Monday and police
found another 30 corpses in Baghdad as the war-ravaged nation battled
relentless bloodshed four years after the US-led invasion to topple
Saddam Hussein.
In a televised address marking the anniversary, US President George W.
Bush refused to withdraw troops from Iraq, saying such a step would be
"devastating."
Iraq marks the fourth anniversary of the war on Tuesday.
With tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead and nearly 3,500 foreign
troops killed since the March 2003 war, a rare opinion poll of Iraqis
said they felt increasingly pessimistic and insecure about their future.
The poll by BBC and US broadcaster ABC News said that only 26 percent of
respondents felt safe in their own neighbourhoods, and 86 percent
expressed concern about someone in their household becoming a victim of
violence.
About 78 percent opposed the presence of foreign forces and 69 percent
said their presence made the security situation worse.
A BBC survey in November 2005 painted a much brighter picture, with 71
percent of respondents optimistic.
Since then Iraq has been torn apart by a vicious sectarian conflict that
has left two million people as refugees abroad and another 1.8 million
displaced inside the country.
On Monday another 25 people were killed in Iraq, 15 of them in a series
of blasts in the oil hub of Kirkuk.
The biggest attack there, a car bomb near two mosques, killed 10 people
and wounded eight, police Colonel Taha Salaheddin told AFP. Another five
people were killed in separate attacks in and around the city.
The bomb exploded in central Kirkuk's Sector 90 district which houses
the two mosques, one Shiite and one Sunni, as well as the emergency
police command, Salaheddin said.
Over the past few months, insurgents have stepped up attacks in the
city, an ethnically mixed city claimed by both Arabs and Kurds.
Baghdad also saw violence despite a massive security crackdown in the
capital which has put 90,000 US and Iraqi troops on the streets to curb
the bloodletting.
A bomb at the entrance of the Shiite Hussein Abu Ruh mosque in central
Baghdad's Shorja district killed five people and wounded 25 others, a
security official said.
Elsewhere five people were killed.
Police also found the bodies of 30 men killed execution-style in Baghdad
in yet another instance of gruesome sectarian murder.
As the violence raged, Bush stressed it was not the time for US troops
to return home.
"It could be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our
best option is to pack up and go home," Bush said in his speech.
"That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences
for American security would be devastating," he said, warning that a US
departure would spark chaos in Iraq which could engulf the region.
"The terrorists could emerge from the chaos with a safe haven in Iraq to
replace the one they had in Afghanistan, which they used to plan the
attacks of September 11, 2001," Bush said.
He also urged critics to give the Baghdad security plan more time.
"The Baghdad security plan is still in its early stages and success will
take months, not days or weeks," Bush said.
The plan, which puts an extra 21,500 troops in Iraq, has been heavily
criticised in the United States by tens of thousands of anti-war protesters.
Iraq's embattled Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, meanwhile, insisted that
the country's communal murders had ended.
"I would say that the sectarian killing is over," he said in comments to
be broadcast on British television on Monday. He blamed Al-Qaeda for the
violence.
"They are carrying out killings and crimes in Sunni areas in the same
way they target Shia areas... they have sick minds. They believe that
anyone who works for the government deserves to be killed," Maliki said.
Bassen Ridha, a senior adviser to the premier, also highlighted the
advances since the fall of Saddam, who was executed in December for
crimes against humanity.
He cited the writing of an Iraqi constitution and the creation of a
government of national unity by an elected parliament -- with 25 percent
of its members women -- as a good basis for progress.
"A vicious individual like Saddam was overthrown. We are making efforts.
There are good things," said Ridha.
"Number one: Now we have freedom. Every Iraqi can express his wish
without fear. In the old days he could not do that. Now we have so many
parties, so many newspapers, so many TV stations. In Saddam's time only
two TV stations."