How can you hold elections amid all this savagery? (Cockburn in Baghdad)

[Emillereid]

The pattern of violence has changed. The US and interim government have diminishing control

Patrick Cockburn:

09/18/04 "The Independent" -- 'In Iraq, there's ongoing acts of violence but freedom is on the march," said President George Bush breezily earlier in the week.

No it isn't. The violence is getting worse by the day, and freedom is visibly on the retreat. The US and the interim Iraqi government do not have full control of almost any Iraqi city or town outside Kurdistan. The insurgency is spreading. Iraqis speak of their country fragmenting into competing centres of power like Lebanon in the 1970s.

From afar, it may seem that violence in Iraq is now endemic. Every day, there are similar television pictures of the bloody aftermath of US air strikes, suicide bombs, street fighting and ambushes on American forces.

But the pattern of violence has changed significantly, and for the worse, in the last six months. A year ago, fighting was mainly confined to Sunni Muslim districts in the provinces around Baghdad. Now attacks are being made on US forces across the country. August was the first month in which more US soldiers were killed and wounded by Shia fighters than by Sunni guerrillas........

http://207.44.245.159/article6922.htm

Kerry has got to promise to end this carnage!!