Update:
(Man, every pic I ever seen of this guy, reminds me of a Stooge)
Sunni bloc pulls out of Iraqi government Quote:
Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government Wednesday, undermining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's efforts to seek reconciliation among the country's rival factions.
Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Front, said at a news conference in the capital that the bloc's six cabinet ministers would submit their resignations later in the day.
Al-Issawi said the decision to pull out from the government followed what he called al-Maliki's failure to respond to a set of demands put forward by the Accordance Front last week, when it gave the prime minister seven days to meet its demands.
Among the demands: a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias and the participation of all groups represented in the government in dealing with security issues.
"The government is continuing with its arrogance, refusing to change its stand and has slammed shut the door to any meaningful reform," al-Issawi said. "We had hoped that the government would respond to these demands or acknowledge its failures. But its stand did not surprise us at all."
The Accordance Front has 44 of parliament's 275 seats. Its withdrawal from the 14-month-old government is the second such action by a faction of al-Maliki's "national unity" coalition.
Five cabinet ministers loyal to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr quit the government in April to protest al-Maliki's reluctance to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Bombings rock Baghdad
Violence continued unabated in Iraq on Wednesday,as three separate bombing attacks in Baghdad killed at least 70 people and the U.S. military announced three American soldiers were killed by a sophisticated, armour-piercing bomb.
A parked car bomb killed three people and wounded five in southern Baghdad, police said Wednesday afternoon.
In the western part of the city, at least 50 people were killed and 60 wounded when a fuel truck exploded in the primarily Sunni Mansour neighbourhood. Two police officers, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was the work of a suicide attacker.
Earlier Wednesday a second parked car bomb killed 17 civilians and left a gaping crater in a busy square in central Baghdad, police said.
Another 32 people were wounded by the blast, a police officer said on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the explosion ripped a hole more than a metre deep and nearly two metres wide in the asphalt. Three minibuses and six cars were damaged by flames and flying debris. Blood pooled in the street.
A gas station and a nearby restaurant, which was closed at the time of the blast, also suffered damage.
The explosives had been planted in a vehicle in al-Hurriyah square in the mostly Shia Karradah neighbourhood, and detonated around 10:15 a.m. local time, the police officer said.
Thamir Sami, 33, was carrying clothes from his menswear shop out to his car when the explosion shook the area.
"Women and children were lining up near the gas station to get fuel.… I saw burnt bodies. Other motorists and I helped evacuate the wounded before the ambulances came," he said.
The bombing occurred nearly a week after a cluster of explosions, including one from a massive truck bomb, hit the same neighbourhood. Karradah had previously been thought to be one of central Baghdad's safest areas. Last Thursday's blasts killed more than 60 people.
|
I think it's actually interesting to see the thinking and problems those in the Iraqi government face, and to hear what plans and goals they want to stop what's currently going on.
Perhaps instead of everybody trying to guess what the US will do in Iraq, perhaps we should be concentrating on Iraq themselves, see what they require to stop this bloodshed and help make it happen, rather then by-passing all that and listening and doing what Bush wants...... It's not his country, it's the Iraqi's and if they seem to know what is needed to stop all this BS, then perhaps we should start to listen to them.
The Current president is a friggin stooge, he hasn't done anything worthwhile to remember except nothing... he's been suck holing Bush almost from day one, He doesn't have a pair to take action for what his country wants and needs..... he's useless....he's clueless.... frig just look at him.... he's got that blank
"I don't know what I'm really doing" face.
All the demands I seen explained seem pretty reasonable and appear as though it "Could" have a chance at improving things.... but this twirp in power dilly dallys, he ignores reqests and demands by those who have been so-called elected, and he just sits back and let's the destruction of his country continue, like some goon who doesn't have a clue as to what the country needs.