Word: samarra
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...press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural gridiron northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and U.S. Army commanders who explained that the "largest air assault since 2003" in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to put 1500 Iraqi and U.S. troops on the ground had netted 48 suspected insurgents, 17 of which had already been cleared and released. The area, explained the officials, has long been suspected of being used as a base for insurgents operating in and around Samarra, the city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a sacred shrine recently sparked a wave of sectarian...
...votes for him out of 130 and 63 for Adel Abdul Mehdi. And there was a discussion among the other elements about their response to this nomination. There were some issues with regard to the response of [Jaafari's] government immediately in the aftermath of Samarra, where some people thought that a curfew should have been imposed immediately while the government took more than a day-and-a-half to make that decision. And there is the issue of the visit to Turkey that also has been a very [upsetting for the Kurds...
...That is a fundamental change from the situation before. For three years Iraq has been attacked by terrorists and insurgents. What happened after Samarra for the first time, in my view, was that neighbor attacked neighbor. With provocation and with the help of militias, perhaps, but basically neighbors attacked neighbors...
...what happened in the immediate aftermath of Samarra as a strategic warning to the Iraqi society and Iraqi leadership and hopefully a wake-up call in terms of what the potential threat is, and therefore, what needs to be done...
...quite strategically, quite optimistic that we are heading, we are going in the right direction, although the tactical situations are difficult and right now, we are in one of the more difficult periods, in the aftermath of Samarra, in the period of the formation of a government. I urge people in Washington to not to be nervous, but stick with the goals, be flexible, but recognize that it will be difficult...