NYTp.1: Iraq "ominous synergy" -- 'Now...resistance... united.'

At Word of U.S. Foray, a Baghdad Militia Erupts

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: April 7, 2004


BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 6 — The word went out on Tuesday at noon, with the blast of the call to prayer: American soldiers had raided an office of Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, and torn up a poster of his father, one of Iraq's most revered martyrs.

The Khadamiya bazaar exploded in a frenzy. Shopkeepers reached beneath stacks of sandals for Kalashnikov rifles. Boys wrapped their faces in black cloth. Men raced through the streets, kicking over crates and setting up barriers. Some handed out grenades. Within minutes this entire Shiite neighborhood in central Baghdad had mobilized for war....

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American officials estimate the number of people in (Sadr's) private army at 3,000. But as the display of force o Tuesday showed, there were thousands of men and boys in just one Baghdad neighborhood ready to fight for Mr. Sadr. And as battles raged throughout the country, in Sunni bastions like Falluja and Ramadi and in Shiite areas like Sadr City, it was growing increasingly clear that the militias could materialize almost instantaneously. While many people — bakers, teachers, sandwich makers — hold normal jobs, when the call comes, they line up with Mr. Sadr's force, the Mahdi Army....

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There may also be an ominous synergy developing between Sunni and Shiite insurgents. On Monday, insurgents fought a gun battle against United States troops in a Sunni neighborhood near Khadamiya in which three soldiers were killed. Witnesses said the attackers included a mix of Shiites and Sunnis. "There were Shiites from Sadr City and mujahedeen from Falluja," a hotbed of Sunni resistance, said Ayad Karim, a shopkeeper. "Now the resistance is united."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/international/middleeast/07SADR.html

It's going to be a very bloody spring over there.

And where is Chimpy at when all of this is blowing up in Iraq?

On ANOTHER FUCKING VACATION!!!

I want some new numbers on the total # of days that ass has spent on vacation. I know he was on vacation 54 days in the first 8 months he was in office (including a month pre-9/11). Would love to get some new totals!

This one man has heaped more destruction on humanity than any single individual in history. And it's not over yet. How close are we to a nucyular conflagration?

Muslim Rivals Unite In Baghdad Uprising

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 7, 2004; Page A01


BAGHDAD, April 6 -- On the streets of Baghdad neighborhoods long defined by differences of faith and politics, signs are emerging that resistance to the U.S. occupation may be growing from a sporadic, underground effort to a broader insurrection by militiamen who claim to be fighting in the name of their common faith, Islam.

On Monday, residents of Adhamiya, a largely Sunni section of northern Baghdad, marched with followers of Moqtada Sadr, the militant Shiite cleric whose call for armed resistance was answered by local Sunnis the same afternoon, residents said.

As protesters chanted anti-occupation slogans in Abu Hanifa Square, militants were seen hustling toward the site carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, residents said. The guerrillas opened fire on the U.S. armor deployed near the demonstration, attacking from positions in a neighborhood where militants appear to be not just tolerated but encouraged....

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Like complaints about home searches that leave Iraqis feeling defiled and humiliated, disappointment with the Governing Council is a grievance that binds many Iraqis. The panel is widely condemned as dominated by exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress leader far better known and loved in Washington than in Baghdad. The complaint gained new energy when Shiite clerics began a campaign against sections of the basic law the council produced with U.S. oversight as a basis for a constitution....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56091-2004Apr6.html