Human tragedy.
A new NYT report spells it out, again:
The nature of the Iraq war has been changing since at least the late autumn, when political friction between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs rose even as American troops began implementing a long-term plan to decrease their street presence. But the killing accelerated after the bombing on Feb. 22 of a revered Shiite shrine, which unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodletting.
About 900 Iraqi civilians died violently in March, up from about 700 the month before, according to military statistics and the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent organization that tracks deaths. Meanwhile, at least 29 American troops were killed in March, the second-lowest monthly total since the war began.
...The Iraqi public's reaction to the violence has been dramatic. Since the shrine bombing, 30,000 to 36,000 Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence or fear of reprisals, say officials at the International Organization for Migration, based in Geneva. The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration estimated that at least 5,500 families have moved, with the biggest group being 1,250 families settling in the Shiite holy city of Najaf after leaving Baghdad and Sunni-dominated towns in central Iraq. The families are living with relatives or in abandoned buildings, and a crisis of food and water shortages is starting to build, officials say.
...[T]he focus of the attacks has shifted — in September, 82 percent of attacks were against American-led forces and 18 percent against Iraqis; in February, 65 percent were against the foreigners and 35 percent against Iraqis.
Maybe the killing will abate once the Sunnis and Shiites separate themeselves. But in the meantime, this is an outrageous amount of blood for the US and Britain (not everyone in the coalition deserves the same amount of blame; the real sin was the push to invade unnecessarily, not to lend moral and strategic support once the decision had been made) to have on their hands for what looks like basically no geopolitical or strategic gain whatsoever.
The nature of the Iraq war has been changing since at least the late autumn, when political friction between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs rose even as American troops began implementing a long-term plan to decrease their street presence. But the killing accelerated after the bombing on Feb. 22 of a revered Shiite shrine, which unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodletting.
About 900 Iraqi civilians died violently in March, up from about 700 the month before, according to military statistics and the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent organization that tracks deaths. Meanwhile, at least 29 American troops were killed in March, the second-lowest monthly total since the war began.
...The Iraqi public's reaction to the violence has been dramatic. Since the shrine bombing, 30,000 to 36,000 Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence or fear of reprisals, say officials at the International Organization for Migration, based in Geneva. The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration estimated that at least 5,500 families have moved, with the biggest group being 1,250 families settling in the Shiite holy city of Najaf after leaving Baghdad and Sunni-dominated towns in central Iraq. The families are living with relatives or in abandoned buildings, and a crisis of food and water shortages is starting to build, officials say.
...[T]he focus of the attacks has shifted — in September, 82 percent of attacks were against American-led forces and 18 percent against Iraqis; in February, 65 percent were against the foreigners and 35 percent against Iraqis.
Maybe the killing will abate once the Sunnis and Shiites separate themeselves. But in the meantime, this is an outrageous amount of blood for the US and Britain (not everyone in the coalition deserves the same amount of blame; the real sin was the push to invade unnecessarily, not to lend moral and strategic support once the decision had been made) to have on their hands for what looks like basically no geopolitical or strategic gain whatsoever.
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