Word: sectarian
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Does Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have the political spine to deal with Iraq's No. 1 problem - the Shi'ite militias? There's a growing suspicion in Baghdad that he does not. Having promised, for the umpteenth time, to crack down on the sectarian death squads wreaking havoc on the Iraqi capital, the prime minister promptly turned around and castigated U.S. forces for doing precisely that. The Iraqi leader claimed that a predawn raid Wednesday on a militia stronghold by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers had been conducted without his approval, and said such attacks would not be repeated...
...very militias he has vowed to crush, the increasingly hamstrung prime minister has forced U.S. troops guarding the city to don kid gloves when dealing with the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the radical Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, which has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence that kills an average of 100 Iraqis a day. And there is palpable frustration among U.S. soldiers patrolling the streets of Baghdad that every time they strike against the Mahdi Army, they are publicly scolded by the Iraqi prime minister. "Every time he does one of these about-turns...
...finally had enough. In a press conference in Baghdad today, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and General George Casey announced that the Iraqi government has agreed to a timeline to take over security responsibilities, quell sectarian violence, split oil revenues and negotiate a truce with the Sunni insurgents. According to Khalilzad and Casey, it will all take place within 18 months. And how does anyone know the Iraqis can achieve all that? Because we say they have to. "Iraqi leaders must step up," Khalilzad says, "to achieve key political and security milestones on which they have agreed...
...what's happening in Iraq, though, not about al-Qaeda principally but about sectarian...
There's no question that there is sectarian violence now, but remember how we got to sectarian violence: al-Qaeda. That was their strategy: to kill Shia until they could generate some kind of a response. And the lesson we should have learned with 9/11 is that there may have been a time in our history when we could withdraw behind our borders and be safe and secure here at home. That day passed on 9/11. When we saw the damage that a handful of men could do--trained in the remote training camps of Afghanistan, aided and abetted...