Horror and Turmoil in Iraq

On the heels of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld accusing the media of "exaggerating" what's been happening on the ground in Iraq, we are informed of three startling events today.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The bodies of 18 men -- bound, blindfolded and strangled -- were found in a Sunni Arab district of Baghdad, apparent victims of the sectarian turmoil gripping Iraq that threatens the formation of a coalition government.

Gunmen wearing the uniform of Iraqi police commandos seized about 50 employees from the offices of a security company on Wednesday, police sources said. An Interior Ministry source said he was unaware of any official police operation in the area.

Iraq's Shi'ite interior minister, a hate figure for many Sunnis who accuse him of condoning death squads, escaped an apparent assassination attempt when a roadside bomb blasted his convoy. Minister Bayan Jabor, however, was not in his car.

Reuters provides a roundup of all of today's violence in Iraq.

On Tuesday, the US ambassador to Iraq said the invasion has opened up a "Pandora's box of ethnic and sectarian strife".

Over at Common Dreams, Kevin McKiernan speculates that the US knew Saddam didn't have any WMDs because, in 2002, they had promised the Kurds gas masks for protection against a possible chemical or biological weapon attack, expected as retribution once the war with Iraq began, but they never delivered.

Amnesty International reported this week that 14,000 people are "detained without trial in Iraq".

The detainee situation in Iraq was comparable to Guantánamo Bay, he added, but on a much larger scale, and the detentions appeared to be "arbitrary and indefinite".

"It sends a very worrying message to the people of Iraq that the multinational force does not think normal human rights standards apply," he said.

Will we ever see the day when Bush and his puppets are tried for war crimes? No one knows right now. What we do know is that this war is a failure on all fronts, support in the US and among the soldiers themselves has slipped dramatically and that ought to be enough for Democrats to regain power in the elections this year. Just what does it take to get voters motivated to take control of this situation? That is the question.