Fill 'Er Up

That's the thing about attacking a popular militia group in the most oil-rich city in the country, they have options:

Saboteurs blew up one of Iraq’s two main oil export pipelines in southern Iraq on Thursday, a Southern Oil Company official told Reuters.

”This morning saboteurs blew up the pipeline transporting crude from Zubair 1 by placing bombs beneath it. The pipeline was severely damaged,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

This will probably stall 1/3 of all oil exports out of Basra. And the Mahdi Army made intimations that this would be their next move, so this is obviously a result of the Maliki invasion.

Meanwhile, Baghdad is so safe that a spokesman for the security plan has been abducted. And the battles have widened to the entire Shi'a region between Baghdad and Basra. The Mahdi Army "opened fire on civilians in downtown Baghdad," which doesn't seem like the actions of a group under cease-fire. After all the "success" of the surge, we're back to open warfare on the streets of Iraq. Tell me again how we're winning?

...Apparently Bush said in a speech today that "the groundwork had been laid for political reconciliation." Only the ground is covered in oil from the blown pipeline and the blood of martyrs, I guess.