military presence

This is very interesting. Last night Joe on AmericaBLOG posted this from a Washington Post article:

Five suicide bombers struck Shiite marketplaces in northeast Baghdad and a town north of the capital at nightfall Thursday, killing at least 122 people and wounding more than 150 in one of Iraq's deadliest days in years.

The savage attacks came as a new American ambassador began his first day on the job, and Senate Democrats ignored a veto threat and approved a bill to require President Bush to start withdrawing troops.

At least 178 people were killed or found dead Thursday, which marked the end of the seventh week of the latest U.S.-Iraqi military drive to curtail violence in Baghdad and surrounding regions.

I went to the article linked by Joe and read the entire thing, which started with those three paragraphs. Now today when you go to the link, the first three paragraphs are as follows:

Bombs tore through crowds of after-work shoppers in Baghdad and a town north of the capital on Thursday in an onslaught of violence that killed more than 100 people, according to Iraqi government and hospital officials.

This is very interesting and hasn't received much attention as of yet:

Major partners in Iraq's governing coalition are in behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence, according to lawmakers involved.

The talks are aimed at forming a new parliamentary bloc that would seek to replace the current government and that would likely exclude supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is a vehement opponent of the U.S. military presence.

The new alliance would be led by senior Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who met with President Bush last week. Al-Hakim, however, was not expected to be the next prime minister because he prefers the role of powerbroker, staying above the grinding day-to-day running of the country.

A key figure in the proposed alliance, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, left for Washington on Sunday for a meeting with Bush at least three weeks ahead of schedule.

Interesting how the "key figures" in this movement have had meetings in Washington. It sounds like the Hadley memo carried some meaning. What else is interesting is the fact that al-Maliki was essentially Bush's pick to run the country. Remember - they had picked someone else, until Washington pressured the country into picking Maliki.

So what does al-Maliki think about this?

They said al-Maliki was livid at the attempt to unseat him.

"We know what's going on and we will sabotage it," said a close al-Maliki aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities involved. He did not elaborate.

Our military presence in Iraq is a major problem - period. People try to argue the "stay the course" line over and over again, but look at these stories from today alone:

Four more U.S. soldiers have been charged with rape and murder and a fifth with dereliction of duty in the alleged rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman and the killings of her relatives in Mahmoudiya, the military said Sunday.

The five were accused Saturday following an investigation into allegations that American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division raped the teenager and killed her and three relatives at her home south of Baghdad.

And then this one from today's New York Times:

No American serviceman has been executed since 1961. But in the past month, new cases in Iraq have led to charges against 12 American servicemen who may face the death penalty in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians.

Military officials caution against seeing the cases as part of any broader pattern, noting that the incidents in question are isolated and rare. But the new charges represent an extraordinary flurry in a conflict that has had relatively few serious criminal cases so far.

As investigators complete their work, military officials say, the total of American servicemen charged with capital crimes in the new cases could grow substantially, perhaps exceeding the total of at least 16 other marines and soldiers charged with murdering Iraqis throughout the first three years of the war.

One of Murtha's original arguments for wanting us to phase the troops out of
Iraq was due to a poll that showed many Iraqi's favored attacks aimed at our
troops. Today a new poll has been released reaffirming that argument:

A new poll found that nearly half of Iraqis approve of attacks on
U.S.-led forces, and most favor setting a timetable for American troops to
leave.

The poll also found that 80 percent of Iraqis think the United States
plans to maintain permanent bases in the country even if the newly elected
Iraqi government asks American forces to leave. Researchers found a link
between support for attacks and the belief among Iraqis that the United
States intends to keep a permanent military presence in the country.

At the same time, the poll found that many Iraqis think that some outside
military forces are required to keep Iraq stable until the new government
can field adequate security forces on its own. Only 39 percent of Iraqis
surveyed thought that Iraqi police and army forces were strong enough to
deal with the security challenges on their own, while 59 percent thought
Iraq still needed the help of military forces from other countries.

Seventy percent of Iraqis favor setting a timetable for U.S. forces to
withdraw, with half of those favoring a withdrawal within six months and the
other half favoring a withdrawal over two years.