Word: samarra
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...mistakes. In 2003 the U.S. not only unseated the last and most brutal of Iraq's tyrants but also destroyed the institutions--notably the army and the Baath Party--that held Iraq together. The sectarian slaughter that followed the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra accelerated Iraq's disintegration...
...Iraq's army and police as if they were neutral guarantors of public safety. Iraqis see them for what they are: Shi'ites or Sunnis who are active combatants in Iraq's civil war. Shi'ite police units have kidnapped, tortured and executed thousands of Sunnis since the Samarra bombing. Sunni policemen are often insurgents or sympathizers. The army, while marginally better than the police, is divided along sectarian lines and is largely ineffective. Whole battalions do not show up for combat duties they don't like. It is not possible to build a national army or police force when...
...students to attack Sunni teachers. Many educators have simply thrown in the towel, taking their skills to other countries. In August, the Ministry of Higher Education said over 3,250 professors had fled Iraq since the outbreak of sectarian killings in February, when the major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra was bombed...
...Waddah overheard the guards talking about the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites for Shi'ites. They also spoke of the wave of sectarian violence that followed, with Shi'ite mobs wreaking vengeance on Sunnis. "It sounded like Sunnis were being slaughtered in the streets of Baghdad," Waddah says. "I was worried about my family. They were new to the city and had no influential relatives who could protect them." While waiting to use the toilet over the next few days, the captives whispered rumors of how their Sunni kidnappers were taking revenge...
...dismaying, if predictable—few of the officials who should know the differences actually do. If we had our druthers, every Harvard graduate and civil servant would have understood immediately the importance of the bombing of the al-Askari shrine this past February in the Iraqi city of Samarra. Who could have noted it at that time as one of Shi’a Islam’s holiest sites, and how many Harvard students could have predicted the upswing in violence, now bordering on civil war, its destruction immediately caused? We would have Harvard students likewise know which...