USAid: "Iraq out of control"

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein at 9:45 AM on January 19, 2006.

Terrorism News points to an alarming story in the Guardian.

Iraq is out of control according to a recent conflict assessment report published by USAid. The report says that Iraq has undergone a near complete "social breakdown" under American occupation and that criminals now have "near free reign" in the country. USAid also reports that the conflict has become extremely multilateral ("internecine" in the agency's parlance): local tribes are turning each other in as insurgents to settle family disputes, foreign fighters are streaming in from all over the Sunni world, gangster-clans rule the major cities, the police are powerless but self-appointed roving bands of "morality police" accost ordinary Iraqis on the streets

The violence is unremitting. Juan Cole reports that fifty Iraqis were killed Wednesday in an attack on an oil refinery and that electricity service is down to six hours a day in Baghdad where the temperature often dips below freezing.

Like I said earlier, anyone who responds to talk of invading Iran with anything but a bitter laugh is a tool. Look how we're coping with the last country we "liberated."

[Terrorism News, Informed Comment]

Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.