Get Out

I seem to remember a lot of talk by George Bush and his proxies to the effect of "When the Iraqis want us to leave, we will leave." Well, here's our chance:

Iraq's ruling parties demanded U.S. forces cede control of security on Monday as the government launched an inquiry into a raid on a Shi'ite mosque that ministers said saw "cold blooded" killings by U.S.-led troops [...]

One thing was certain: Shi'ite leaders were up in arms against the U.S. forces who effectively brought them to power by overthrowing Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baathist regime.

"The Alliance calls for a rapid restoration of (control of) security matters to the Iraqi government," Jawad al-Maliki, a senior spokesman of the Shi'ite Islamist Alliance and ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told a news conference.

The United States handed over formal sovereignty in 2004 but 133,000 troops in the country give it the main say in security.

The US responded to this call by asking that the duly elected Prime Minister be tossed out of office:

Senior Shiite politicians said today that the American ambassador has told Shiite officials to inform the Iraqi prime minister that President Bush does not want him to remain the country's leader in the next government.

It is the first time the Americans have directly intervened in the furious debate over the country's top job, the politicians said, and it is inflaming tensions between the Americans and some Shiite leaders.

The ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the head of the main Shiite political bloc at a meeting last Saturday to pass a "personal message from President Bush" on to the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who the Shiites insist should stay in his post for four more years, said Redha Jowad Taki, a Shiite politician and member of Parliament who was at the meeting.

Ambassador Khalilzad said that President Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" Mr. Jaafari to be the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki, a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc. It was the first "clear and direct message" from the Americans on the issue of the candidate for prime minister, Mr. Taki said.

So much for the power of the Purple Finger, and the historic march of freedom and self-government in Iraq. That didn't produce the desired result. So it must be scrapped.

Since the charge of the Administration is that the media is not reporting the good news from Iraq, and seeing that I am arguably the most junior member of that media, I am going to try to set the example for my betters by highlighting some good news, for the sake of balance. After all, I hear that 14 of the 18 provinces in the country are fine! Of course, those provinces by and large don't have any people in them, which means the statement is a bit like saying "See, the sand is not rebelling against us!" But still, that MUST be illustrative of something. So in this spirit, I would like to add to the happy talk and good cheer by reminding you, dear reader, to not forget about the schools:

In just two days, at least 150 people have died in the violence threatening to tear apart Iraq. One of them, Hussein Fadhil, was just 13.

The teenager was in front of his school in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, getting ready to walk into the building when a bomb exploded Sunday, the start of the school week in Iraq [...]

Schools and children have increasingly become targets in a bloody conflict pitting Shiite and Sunni Muslims against each other as Iraq teeters on the verge of civil war. The violence has reached immense proportions in recent weeks, with dozens dying every day and overwhelmed Iraqi authorities seemingly incapable of stopping attacks.

With kidnappings of children and attacks at schools on the rise, some parents are just keeping their kids at home.

Bombs, rockets, mortar and machine-gun fire killed 64 school children from the end of October to the end of February, according to a report by the Education Ministry. At least 169 teachers and 84 other employees died during the same period.

Multiply those figures by 10 to get the equivalent of the US population, imagine 640 schoolchildren and 1,700 teachers and 840 school administrators dying in a four-month period, and ask yourself what the top stories would be in this country. The nation would be going nuts.

Iraq is not secure. Until it is, security will be the only story. We ignore it at the peril of ignoring the lives of many millions of people at risk of perishing in this raging conflagration.