NEWS AND COMMENT


NEWS ITEM RIGA, Latvia, Nov. 28 — On the eve of a high-profile trip to Jordan to meet Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq, President Bush on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that Iraq has descended into civil war, blamed Al Qaeda for the latest wave of sectarian violence and vowed not to withdraw troops “until the mission is complete.”


COMMENT

So all these mosque bombings, attacks on Shiites by Sunnis, and kidnappings and murders of Sunnis by Shiites are really just the workings of al Qaeda and not sectarian violence amounting to civil war? Looks like sectarian violence to me.

It will be an uphill battle to get Bush to agree to any sort of withdrawal. He continues to justify the disastrous decision to invade Iraq and has boxed himself, the Iraq Study Group, and the rest of us in because any withdrawal is a surrender to al Qaeda.