Iraqi City(Ramadi) on Edge of Chaos("safe" Baghdad has 22 attacks per day)

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ramadi28sep28.story
Iraqi City on Edge of Chaos
U.S. troops have tried to win over residents in Ramadi, but a surge in abductions and killings is threatening to create another Fallouja.
By Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writer

September 28, 2004

RAMADI, Iraq — Insurgents are killing and kidnapping government officials, police and Iraqi national guard members in an apparent campaign to destabilize this city, the capital of Sunni Muslim-dominated Al Anbar province west of Baghdad.

The rash of attacks threatens to eliminate the interim Iraqi government's control over Ramadi, notwithstanding the presence just outside the city of thousands of U.S. Marines and Army soldiers who back the government's authority.

The provincial governor's three sons were kidnapped, and released only after he resigned. More recently, the deputy governor was kidnapped and killed, his body found this month. The president of the regional university and the provincial directors of the national sewage and communications ministries have also been kidnapped, and 10 contractors working for the United States have been assassinated.

Then there are the ominous posters that appeared on the walls of mosques a couple of weeks ago. Directed at Iraqi police and national guardsmen, they read, "Quit or we'll kill you."

The apparent aim is to make Ramadi into an ungovernable area like neighboring Fallouja, where insurgents have free rein. Ramadi and Fallouja represent 70% of Al Anbar's population, according to U.S. estimates. <snip>

[bemildred]

1. Yet more bullshit.

The "interim Iraqi government" has no control over Ramadi, Samarra,
etc. other than the ability to blow random shit up. The absence of
security IS insecurity. This tries to suggest that the matter is
still in dispute. It is not. Or that it can be remedied by more
of the methods that got us here. It cannot.