Three years ago today, most of us were as close as we could stay to CNN or NPR. Today was the day, at 0230 GMT, that the arbitrary 48-hour deadline which Bush gave Saddam Hussein to vacate his country expired. The day before, France, Germany, and Russia condemned Bush’s plan since it was not approved by a U.N. resolution. But in what would become a pattern over the next three years, Bush plowed ahead anyway.
So Junior, three years later, in the words of Dr. Phil, how’s that working for ya? Chicago Tribune:
In a bustling shopping district in a Shiite neighborhood that has been a frequent target of terrorist attacks, grocer Duraid Mohammed Hussein recently created a no-parking zone in front of his shop, fashioned from red packing cord and a couple of metal stands that he prays will keep car bombers at bay.
The notion that a piece of cord could improve his chances in an insurgent attack is illogical, Hussein acknowledged. But the 35-year-old shopkeeper said he had to do something to ward off a suffocating sense of vulnerability, a feeling that seems pervasive among Iraqis these days.
“In 2003 and 2004, I thought the violence would pass and we would be OK,” Hussein said. “Now I feel as if this will never end. The situation seems to be only getting worse.”
On the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion, anxieties in the capital are high, and Iraqis–politicians and average citizens–are debating whether their fragile country is tearing apart at the seams. Even Iraqis who considered themselves optimists about their country’s future say they fear the deepening Shiite-Sunni strife will push the country into a dark abyss.
At the Pentagon last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that Iraq is in a “very difficult situation” but that overall things are going well…
If by “going well,” you mean more than 2,300 American troops and upwards of 40,000 Iraqi civilians dying and many more thousands of both being injured and maimed, and the country being lawless and chaotic and without basic human services, then yeah, things are great. Thanks, George, Donnie, and Dicky. Heckuva job!
