Today the Washington Post reports:
Gen. David H. Petraeus has decided to reduce the number of U.S. combat brigades in Iraq from 15 to 14 about six weeks earlier than planned, as a result of dramatically lower violence there, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
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The departing brigade has served in Baghdad, where attack levels have plunged.
Combat Brigade Is Cut 6 Weeks Early in Iraq
Petraeus is right to withdraw troops from Iraq. He is wrong in asserting ‘dramatically lower violence there.’ That is simply a lie to justify moving troops to Afghanistan as his new Commander in Chief demands.
There are 150,000 U.S. soldiers and ten thousands of security-contractors in Iraq. But they seem to make little difference to the ongoing violence.
There were at some twenty bomb explosions in Baghdad in just the last four days. The civil war is back in Iraq and there is nothing the U.S. can do about it. The war will stop only after the U.S. has left.
Monday:
One of the explosions hit the busy Karrada district, damaging many shops.
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One bomb was detonated outside a police building in eastern Baghdad, and then as people ran away, a second bomb was set off in their path.Police appeared to have been the target in the most serious attack, but it claimed the lives of six civilians.
In the third explosion, the deputy oil minister of Iraq escaped a bomb attack on his convoy with minor injuries but a bodyguard was seriously hurt.
One policeman was killed in a bombing north of Baghdad, while another bomb exploded near a police patrol in west Baghdad, injuring one policeman and a civilian, police said.
Seven dead in Baghdad bomb blasts
Tuesday:
Seven people were killed and 18 wounded when a
bomb exploded in the depot in the eastern Baghdad neighbourhood of
Al-Mashda, the officials said.In a similar attack, four people were killed and eight wounded when
a roadside bomb went off in Al-Qahira in the north of the capital, they
said.One person was killed and seven wounded when a bomb planted in their
car, part of a government convoy, exploded in the central Karrada
district.A civilian was killed and five wounded when a bomb blew up in a car
near the University of Technology in Baghdad, the security officials
said.In another attack, a policeman was killed and three others wounded
when they were shot at by gunmen driving in a vehicle in the the
southeastern Baghdad district of Al-Gadhir.An Iraqi police major was also wounded along with his two sons when
a bomb planted in their car exploded in Al-Wahda in the centre of the
capital.
String of Baghdad bombings kill 14
Wednesday:
A car bomb near a checkpoint on the road to Baghdad’s airport killed four people and wounded nine on Wednesday, police said.
Two policemen were among the dead and three policemen were among the
wounded in the blast, which took place by a statue near a major
checkpoint outside the heavily guarded airport, police said.
Four killed in Baghdad airport road blast
Thursday:
The deadliest attack Thursday came near
a checkpoint in central Baghdad when two bombs exploded during the
morning rush hour, police said. Four people were killed and seven
wounded in the blasts.Another bomb targeting a government convoy injured six people,
police and hospital officials said. Police said the convoy was carrying
city workers. The police spoke on condition of anonymity because they
were not supposed to release information.The twin blasts in the capital’s Sunni enclave of Sheik Omar
happened at a checkpoint manned by members of an Awakening Council, the
mostly Sunni groups that have joined forces with the Americans against
al-Qaida in Iraq.Another two Awakening Council members was killed in a bombing just
before noon in southeastern Baghdad. The councils come under frequent
attacks by insurgents because they have sided with U.S. forces.Roadside bombs targeting two separate convoys carrying Baghdad city
officials injured eight people, the mayor’s office said in a statement.
The municipal officials were not hurt in the attacks.Nine other people were wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad’s sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City, police said.
Blasts in Baghdad kill 4, wound more than 20