Suicide Car Bomb Blitzkrieg Across Iraq - Dead Iraqis in Fallujah and Ramadi

Today would qualify as a real bad day in Iraq as suicide bombers using vehicles struck in the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah killing upwards of 12 Iraqi civilians - this just a day later after the killing of 43 Iraqis in the southern city of Basra. And this also comes on the day that the U.S. commander of operations in Iraq said the Iraqis are ready to take over security of the country.

From the reports from Breitbart and Reuters:

A suicide car bomber struck a police patrol west of Baghdad Sunday and killed eight people, most of them civilians standing in line outside a post office to collect the monthly stipend for the country's poorest, police officials said.
The blast comes just a day after explosions tore through a market in the south killing 43 people. Violence across Iraq has spiked in the past month as the U.S. moves ahead with a major drawdown of its troops set to be completed by the end of the month.

In Falluja, about 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, three car bomb blasts -- two of them targeting police patrols -- killed at least four people and wounded more than two dozen others, police and medical sources said.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, vouched for the preparedness of Iraq's security forces, telling ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that they are ready and able to take over.

Iraq's military, he said, has "stepped up" to the challenge even as its politicians continue to squabble over the formation of a new government and new incidents of extremist violence are reported.

Obviously, the timing wasn't too great for Odierno's claim of Iraqi preparedness but I want to point out something - look at Pakistan. No one would question the difference in stability between Iraq and Pakistan with Iraq just coming out of a bloody war which, just a few years ago even looked like it might fall to insurgents, but every week in Pakistan you see these kinds of suicide bombings with incredible carnage and no one seems concerned that there isn't a U.S. or NATO presence in Pakistan. What I am getting at is this - the Iraqis are going to see these kinds of terror attacks for decades to come - the key is to keep them isolated as they are.

My concerns for Iraq's security are more focused on whether they can keep a sizeable onslaught of al Qaeda forces from coming across the borders with U.S. support sized way down and the other concern has to be Iranian influence and meddling. While al Qaeda will try to tear the country up into chaos with violent attacks, the Iranians will try to weasel their way into the voting blocks of the Iraqi parliament.

Bottom line is this - Iraq is at least six years from being in the clear but in my view, they have come further, faster than most have thought possible. And the key will be the year 2012 - whether or not Barack Hussein Obama retains power or not will probably determine whether or not Iraq's present government survives or perishes.

Suicide car bomber kills 8 west of Baghdad


BAGHDAD (AP) - A suicide car bomber struck a police patrol west of Baghdad Sunday and killed eight people, most of them civilians standing in line outside a post office to collect the monthly stipend for the country's poorest, police officials said.
The blast comes just a day after explosions tore through a market in the south killing 43 people. Violence across Iraq has spiked in the past month as the U.S. moves ahead with a major drawdown of its troops set to be completed by the end of the month.

The increase in violence and the U.S. pullout have raised concerns about whether Iraqi security forces are up to the job of keeping militants from destabilizing the country further at a time of political uncertainty over who will form the next government.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, vouched for the preparedness of Iraq's security forces, telling ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that they are ready and able to take over.

Iraq's military, he said, has "stepped up" to the challenge even as its politicians continue to squabble over the formation of a new government and new incidents of extremist violence are reported.

It is critical for Iraq, he added, to form a government after months of delay.

Police said the blast in Ramadi, which also wounded 23 people, took place between a petrol station and an abandoned cinema in the city center. Of the eight killed, two were policemen, they said.

Initial reports from Ramadi said the blast was caused by a parked car bomb. Conflicting reports on casualties and the causes of explosions are not uncommon in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of attacks.

In Basra, Iraq's second largest city, police officials and a member of the city's security committee said the blasts there Saturday were caused by a car bomb followed by another bomb placed next to a power generator. The second blast ignited a fuel tank, according to the officials, and Ali al-Maliki of the security committee.

In other violence Sunday, a car bomb exploded near a school and a cluster of stores in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad, killing two people and injuring four.

Violence has dramatically dropped in Iraq since 2008, but insurgent attacks remain a daily occurrence, especially in the capital Baghdad, preventing the city from regaining a semblance of normalcy seven years after the insurgency broke out.