The AP reports

Gunmen assassinated a Sunni Arab member of a committee drafting Iraq's constitution Tuesday, another blow to U.S. and Iraqi efforts to draw members of the disaffected community away from the insurgency and into the political process.

Mijbil Issa, a committee member, Dhamin Hussein, an adviser to the group, and their bodyguard died in a hail of gunfire from two vehicles as they left a restaurant in Baghdad's Karradah district, police said.

The deadline for finishing the draft is Aug. 15. If the Iraqi security forces can't even protect a member of the committee drafting the constitution you have to doubt their recent claims about putting a dent in the insurgent's ability to operate in coordinated manner. Issa and Hussein weren't some low-level targets of opportunity. Killing them took planning and patience.

So far the Bush plan of pretending Iraq doesn't exist and that we don't have over a 100,000 troops there isn't working any better his plan of micro-managing the country did. The killing and violence continues. And George Bush still has no plan. He and his poltical spinners pooh pooed the idea that Iraq would cost us $200 billion, claimed that such a figure was crazy talk, and yet we've burned through that and more. Handing off security to a government that doesn't really exist was a bad idea. What made Bush & Co. think that anyone in Iraq would fall for the ruse that the "government" in Baghdad was in charge of things?

posted by Idle Crank at 7/19/2005 05:42:00 PM