In Baghdad, Reality Counters Rhetoric

[papau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002259.html

In Baghdad, Reality Counters Rhetoric
Violence Remains Everyday Pattern

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 1, 2005; Page A21

BAGHDAD, Nov. 30 -- Through the smoke of car bombs on the streets of Baghdad, Ali Kathem has trouble seeing the progress that President Bush described Wednesday in a speech in Annapolis.

"At least we didn't have terrorism under Saddam Hussein. Now, we have explosions, kidnapping, stealing," said Kathem, 24, a stocky man who has sold cigarettes on a busy roadside in the Iraqi capital for nearly a decade.

<snip>
Multiple-death bombings reached an all-time high of 46 in September, a record likely to be broken this month. More than 400 people have died in bombings this month, compared with 91 a year ago. Every day, according to an estimate by the Brookings Institution in Washington, there are roughly 100 attacks, double the rate of a year ago, and each month between 200 and 300 Iraqi policemen and soldiers are killed. Ninety-three U.S. troops died in October, the fourth-highest monthly toll since the invasion of Iraq.

Iraqis generally agree that things are awful, but there is less unanimity about what should be done. Bush pledged that U.S. troops would stay until the mission was "complete." Some here approve, but others want them out now.<snip>