Cracks in the Facade: Morning News Roundup (23 Feb)

We're going to concentrate on news from Iraq, the day after the bombing of the golden-domed Askariya shrine in Samarra (shown in before and after photos at the right, grabbed from the front page of the WaPo).

First some good news from the US military command, with spokesman Major General Rick Lynch rejecting the idea that a civil war is imminent or brewing. "As of now seven attacks on mosques across Iraq have taken place that resulted in damage to mosques. Two Sunni imams (prayer leaders) and one Sunni sheikh were murdered," Lynch told reporters, playing down the sectarian strife.
Comforting? Not when played out against the rest of the canvas. First from the London Guardian:
It was the third large-scale attack in as many days aimed at Iraqi Shias, who in the postwar chaos have been targeted by Sunni extremists with hundreds of car and suicide bombs. Though no one was reported killed, the impact was immediate and far reaching.
The NYTimes reports "[a]t least 95 people, some of them prominent Sunni Arab clerics, were killed in revenge in Baghdad and the surrounding areas in the chaotic 24 hours following" Wednesday's bombing. Also:
Sunni Arab politicians broke off talks with Shiite and Kurdish leaders over the formation of a new government, saying they would not engage in discussions until those responsible for the attacks on Sunnis had been brought to justice.
The WaPo reports on the carnage:
There were a great number of disturbances reported across the country Wednesday night and Thursday, too many to accurately track let alone verify.
In four separate areas around Baghdad, authorities found the bodies of 40 men shot dead, an interior ministry spokesman said Thursday.
In Baqubah, gunmen in several vehicles killed at least three dozen people in buses who were heading to a protest of the mosque bombing, said Gen. Amir Al-Jubouri, Diyala deputy police chief. The riders, Sunnis and Shiites, were stopped by the gunmen who set up their own checkpoint. Their bodies were found in a creek.
And from Salon's War Room:
As the AP reports, the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars is claiming that 168 Sunni mosques have been attacked -- and 10 imams killed and an additional 15 abducted -- in the wake of the bombing of the Askariya shrine.
MSNBC reports on other attacks:
Four American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Thursday. The soldiers were assigned to the division's 1st Brigade Combat Team and were killed while on patrol Wednesday near Hawijah, 150 miles north of Baghdad.

Three journalists working for Al Arabiya television were found shot dead after being attacked while filming in Samarra.

A bomb targeting an Iraqi army foot patrol killed 12 people and wounded 21 in the city of Baqouba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, an army source said.
And Juan Cole (over at his Informed Comment blog) notes this disturbing possibilities regarding the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who appealed for peaceful protests yesterday:
He laid responsibility for security on the Iraqi government, saying that it "is called today more than at any time in the past to shoulder its full responsibilities in stopping the series of criminal actions that have targeted holy spaces. If the security apparatuses are unable to safeguard against this crisis, the believers are able to do so, by the aid of God."

Astonishingly, Sistani seems to be threatening to deploy his own militia, Ansar Sistani, if the Iraqi government doesn't do a better job of protecting Shiites and their holy sites.
One might think that the US government might have seen something like this coming. And ThinkProgress reminds us of that:
In September 2004, intelligence officials at the CIA warned that Iraq could dissolve into civil war over the next 18 months (18 months have now elapsed since the report was revealed). “White House spokesman Scott McClellan, and other White House spokesmen, called the intelligence assessment the work of ‘pessimists and naysayers’ after its outlines were disclosed by the New York Times. President Bush called the assessment a guess, which drew the consternation of many intelligence officials.”
Finally, one last gloating note. Last fall when Jack Murtha came out for a quick withdrawl of forces to bases outside of Iraq (creating quick-strike capabilities should the need arise), Bill O'Reilly called those advocating immediate withdrawal from Iraq "pinheads" and compared them to Hitler appeasers. On his 20 February radio show (two days before the mosque bombing), he's singing a different tune (via Media Matters), suggesting:
...that the United States "hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible" because "[t]here are so many nuts in the country -- so many crazies -- that we can't control them." O'Reilly then claimed that the "big mistake" was actually "the crazy-people underestimation."
I'm not necessarily saying pack up and go home right this minute. But, IMHO, BushCo needs to seriously consider this contingency for sometime within the next 6 months.

Anything else going on?

On the Dubai port deal, the NYTimes has an assessment from several security experts who say "the gaping holes in security at American ports have little to do with the nationality of who is running them." And President Bush brings out his standard "trust me" chestnut, saying "people don't need to worry about security." [AP]
More than 25 million Americans turned to the nation's largest network of food banks, soup kitchens and shelters for meals last year, up 9 percent from 2001. [AP/WaPo]
The average income of American families, after adjusting for inflation, declined by 2.3 percent in 2004 compared to 2001 while their net worth rose but at a slower pace. [AP]
South Dakota lawmakers yesterday approved the nation's most far-reaching ban on abortion, setting the stage for new legal challenges that its supporters say they hope lead to an overturning of Roe v. Wade. [WaPo]
Whew... how about a little brevity from The Onion:
Government documents declassified today reveal that President Bush was briefed last summer of "a substantial risk" that Vice President Dick Cheney would shoot an elderly male in the face sometime in the next several months.

In a Presidential Daily Briefing given to Bush in August 2005, the CIA warned that the vice president was a potent threat to the senior population at large, and in particular "possessed the capabilities and intentions to spray a senior citizen with projectiles fired from a shotgun or other weapon."

Need a bit more grim humor? Check out this great video from David Letterman's show earlier this week, hosted at Crooks and Liars, which offers a fake advertisement from the White House suggesting to the press corps that they might want to move away from the Shooting Party and instead focus on other Dick Cheney-related news matters (such as those I've screen-captured below):