Bloodshed rises in Iraq as US demands 'victory'

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As Tony Blair, one of the architects of the Iraq war, prepares to leave office, it is clearer than ever that his ally's strategy of systematically crushing the Sunni insurgency is not working. In this special report from Baghdad, Patrick Cockburn shows why


It will be a long war. The rumble of artillery, broken by the clatter of helicopters passing overhead, resounded across Baghdad late last week as US forces fought insurgents in their stronghold in the sprawling district of Dohra, in the south of the capital. Early yesterday, five US soldiers were killed and three are missing after an explosion in Mahmoudiyah, near Baghdad.

The three-month-old US plan to regain control of Baghdad is slow to show results, despite the arrival of four more US brigades. Security in the heart of the city may be a little better, but the US and the Iraqi government are nowhere near to dealing a knockout blow to the Sunni insurgency or Shia militias.

The Sunni guerrillas trying to isolate Baghdad from the rest of the country exploded truck bombs on three important bridges last week, killing 26 people. One blew up in a queue of cars on the old Diyala bridge, just south of Baghdad. Two minutes later a truck exploded on a newer bridge over the same river. North of Baghdad, at Taji, long a centre for insurgents, a third vehicle bomb made impassable a bridge linking Baghdad with northern Iraq.

This is the situation as Tony Blair, with President George Bush the chief architect and defender of the Iraq war, prepares to leave office. But as the fierce fighting continued, far to the south Mr Bush's Vice-President, Dick Cheney, was proclaiming defiance to Iran. "With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike," he told sailors assembled on one of the carriers. "We'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region."

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2536864.ece