Wet work is the jargon for killing people--having their blood on your hands. We are allowing the Shiites to hide while our innocent boys and girls commit genocide against the Sunnis.

The article "Iraq attacks kill 110 Shiite pilgrims" at  click here with all of the killing and concludes

"The Shiites have been used to having swords pointed at their necks," said Fatah Sheik, a journalist and Sadr supporter.

"The more ordeals they see, the more patience they show."

Shiite patience could wither in the face of bombings on the scale of the Samarra attack or the assassination of a major Shiite religious figure. And some U.S. military officials believe there is little they can do to prevent a Sunni bombing campaign.

"Despite all our efforts," said the senior Pentagon official, "we have not gotten to the point we can suppress those car bombs."

The US can’t suppress anything because the surge is failing and the moves by the Sunni and Shiite were predicted as "This is a bit of a chess game," said the senior Pentagon official. "We made a move, we are surging. He [Sadr] made a move, he is laying low. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda is moving."

A military official in Baghdad said U.S. planners predicted both the Shiite militia strategy of curbing death squad executions and a Sunni strategy of attempting ever more spectacular bombings.

"Something that is truly going to attract public attention," said the military official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. "I don't know what form it will take, but the intent is the media draw."

The article "Cheney's Rules for the Press" at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/02/28/BL2007022801191_pf.html states "Well now it's really truly official: The first benchmark that the White House put forth to the public as evidence that the Iraqis were serious about their own security this time -- and that Bush's latest plan would, unlike the previous ones, actually work -- has been missed….

The White House on Jan. 10 made it clear: "You're going to have some opportunities to judge very quickly. The Iraqis are going to have three brigades within Baghdad within a little more than a month. They have committed to trying to get one brigade in, I think, by the first of February, and two more by the 15th."

But Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and Renee Schoof write for McClatchy Newspapers that "retired Vice Adm. John McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Army Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee [yesterday] that the Iraqi army sent to Baghdad only two of the three additional brigades that were to have been in place by Feb. 15."

Maybe inexperienced bureaucrats can’t articulate their opinions well, but that isn’t the case as even the most seasoned of the GOP faithful have lost their patience with big bro 43! Sen. John Warner, R-Va. said "I do not see evidence, strong evidence, that the Iraqi forces are measuring up in any amount to what the president laid down."

This is pretty simple—no "fuzzy math" can alter the fact that 1/3 of the Iraq troops aren’t showing up! The article "Bush Threatens to Veto Democrats' Iraq Plan" at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030800206_pf.html explains that the Democratic party wants W to adhere to the benchmarks he recently referred to. It states "Under the House plan, Congress would institute the same tough benchmarks for the Iraqi government that Bush detailed in a national address in January. The president would have to certify by July 1 that the Iraqi government had made progress toward those goals. If he could not, troops would begin withdrawing, with all troops out of combat by year's end. If Bush could certify progress, he would have until Oct. 1 to certify that all of the benchmarks had been met. If they had not, troops would have to be withdrawn by March.

Whatever happened with the benchmarks, troop withdrawals would have to begin by March 1, 2008, under the House bill, and all troops would be out of combat roles by Aug. 31."

The article "Sects Slice Up Iraq as US Troops 'Surge' Misfires" at http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines07/0304-04.htm states "For the Mahdi Army, blamed for the worst of the death squad violence since the bombing of the Golden Dome at Samarra last year, the security plan operation has allowed it a period of retrenchment - its third tactical withdrawal since the invasion. On both previous occasions it emerged stronger."

The Shiite Death Squads are just resting up and allowing their US stooges do the dirty work.

The article "Analysis: Sunnis on Warpath in Baghdad" at http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2007/mar/06/030601387.html explains the Sunnis hidden agenda as "Inside Baghdad, the insurgent goal appears to be to kill enough Shiite civilians to provoke the Shiite militias, especially the Mahdi Army of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, back into the streets. That would force a showdown between the Mahdi Army and the Americans, weakening the Shiite militia and straining relations between the Shiite-led government and its U.S. backers."

If the Sunnis can’t get the Shiite back into the killing grounds while the US is still there it doesn’t matter. Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group Harling has a theory that "Both Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads are "preparing for the real battle for Baghdad - which begins when the surge is over."

Whatever is happening in Iraq the surge is failing, as we can’t get the Iraqis to even contribute troops for their own security. Sure there are less Shiites out there killing Sunnis, but it’s the Shiites third tactical withdrawal since the invasion.

Whatever W is doing now also isn’t confined to the surge. His stance had always been to never negotiate with terrorists--which he defined Iran and Syria as being, but now he’s following the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation on that.

We always hear that if we are defeated in Iraq then the Islamic terrorists will have gained. That is also a lie as the article "American Face-Saving Attempts in the Mideast East" athttp://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=93351&d=9&m=3&y=2007 makes clear. It deals with the upcoming Baghdad conference and concludes "However as a face-saving effort to stop the violence in Iraq, the US is showing signs of readiness to hold some sort of dialogue with Iran and Syria. It has also agreed to attend the Baghdad conference scheduled for March 10, in which Iraq’s neighboring countries and five permanent members of the Security Council will take part.

Will the conference succeed in ending the crisis and will the US agree to withdraw its forces from Iraq? Or will the Bush administration commit another big blunder by striking Iran and plunging the whole region into carnage and bloodshed?"

The summit isn’t being talked about much in the US. W didn’t want to participate and just one meeting between members of an area which has been so unstable really can’t be expected to produce much. A start is a start though even if there are new concerns that the Sunnis in the area are trying to help their Iraqi brethren.

On the eve of a regional meeting to discuss Iraq's security problems, clerics said the Arab League, a bloc of mainly Sunni Arab states which will attend the meeting, were infringing on Iraq's sovereignty by suggesting that constitutional reforms were needed to give non-Shiites a greater share of power."

These countries know the score. It is an area in which mayhem and sectarian violence is par for the course. There are reasons to feel that the Shiites have our boys and girls as their sub-contractor doing their wet work, but in the long-run does it really matter? Those in the know realize that the Sunnis and Shiites are going to be in the area a lot longer than the US will be and can leisurely kill their quota of US infidels while waiting for us to depart. They have more experience than we have and can calmly contemplate their short-term steps as well as their long-range options.

US citizens don’t tolerate our youth dying in far-off lands and we are concerned that bin laden and his ilk will benefit from our departure from Iraq. We will sooner or later. No matter when we do bin laden will proclaim that we are departing just as we always have when we have had too much of the violence.

The un-named military official in Baghdad talked about the media and how the Sunnis are working to it. What is also true is that the GOP has always depended on phony scams, such as the Vietnam era "domino theory" to attract attention to their ability to save the US from un-named villains. Now we have the current reincarnation of the "Evil Empire", W’s "Axis of Evil" and the GOP is banking on the US MSM to get them a few extra votes in 2008. This Iraq theatre of GWOT is just as bogus as Reagan’s "War on Drugs—just say no" and even the US military, including General Petraeus, the champion of surge, admits that military might alone isn’t going to win the Iraq war.

W should declare victory and pullout of there now. Enough has been sacrificed.

Related articles:

"Sweep begins of area ruled by Shiite militia"

"Iraq attacks kill 110 Shiite pilgrims"

"Analysis: Sunnis on Warpath in Baghdad"

"Cheney's Rules for the Press"

"Analysis: Sunnis on Warpath in Baghdad"

"Bush Threatens to Veto Democrats' Iraq Plan"

"American Face-Saving Attempts in the Mideast East"

"Shiite clerics say Sunni Arab states interfering in Iraq"