Baghdad Blasts Kill At Least 18, Wound 53

BAGHDAD, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Twin bomb blasts killed 18 people and wounded 53 in central Baghdad on Wednesday as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an unannounced visit to Iraq, police said.

The car bomb and a second explosion killed police and civilians in the Nahdha neighbourhood of central Baghdad, near a traffic police station and a hospital.

Violence has dropped sharply in Iraq, where the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 unleashed years of sectarian bloodshed and insurgent attacks. But car bombs, assassinations and other violence are still routine.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[MsAttitude]

Our troops and their families have made major sacrifices fighting for the freedom's of the Iraqi people. I have many friends who have been over there and many who are still there. I have heard Taps and Twenty-one Gun Salutes. I've said goodbye to friends who came home draped in an American flag. I've also said goodbye to a loved one to have him come home a different person. The surge is working, give it time. President Elect Obama has decided to do so. His time-line is his way of letting the new Iraqi govt know that they need to step it up and take control. It does not mean that he will cut and run. No matter how you feel about this war don't turn your back on our military!!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/12/06/nc.santa.soldier.wxii

[lentinelia]

What does that even mean? "Don't turn your back on our military".

It is Bush and Cheney who have turned their backs on the young people in the military.
They sent them into a bogus war under false pretenses.
They sent them without the arms or armor necessary to protect themselves.
They made them do two, three, even four tours of duty.
When those who were wounded returned home, they are given the crappiest care imaginable.

Yet the veterans associations continue to wave the flag and sing "hail to the chief".

People protesting this war and trying to get our troops out of there are the ones supporting the soldiers.
The government is composed of the people who have turned their backs on the welfare of the military.

[MsAttitude]

Are you in the military? Are you retired military? If not, where do you get your information from? Defense spending will be cut by Obama, where does that leave our military? I work for the military, my father is retired military and my ex-husband was in the miltiary. My ex-boyfriend did three tours in Iraq, the last one was for 15 months.

[balrog221]

Thank goodness we have not elected a pacifist as most on this post would seem to prefer. Yes Bush misappropriated our resources and good will in Iraq, but that does not mean we should disarm or shrink from the daunting task of defense. By the way that sometimes means getting your hand dirty.

Obama is smart enough to know this...

[lentinelia]

What Bush did was not defense, it was offense.
He attacked a country that had done us no harm and posed no threat.
Saddam had been completely de-fanged after Gulf War One, and he knew it.

Bush weakened us.
He squandered our military might and practically destroyed our economy.
And when we need our National Guard, many of them will be thousands of miles away.

Calling the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and over four thousand Americans - not to mention the wounded and the terrible care they get when they return - "getting your hand dirty" is shocking.

[balrog221]

Point 1 is naive... completely defanged is an overstatement. Yet I agree that we did not need to invade and should not have as containment while leaky was working. Sadam by the way was bank rolling suicide bombers in Israel by the way.

Point 2 100% agree with you and the results have been abysmal.

Point 3 the slaughter you escribe was not the handiwork of americans. That slaughter has been going on for centuries and currently being done by Muslims on other Muslims. A religion by the way that is admittedly at war with the US and the west, and whom we should be working to destroy by getting our hands dirty

[haval2]

Here's your "victory" talk for you...cousnin of "the surge, the surge, the surge."

[MsAttitude]

Something else for the crazed liberals to blame on Bush and our deployed troops. Despite the fact that violence has been in that country for centuries.

[balrog221]

Not only crazed liberals blame Bush. Bush is a bungler regardless of your party affiliation. You are correct though they will... inspite of the fact that most of thee violence emminates from Iraqis themselves and is perpetrated against other Iraqis. Liberals would have us feel guilty for this as if Sadam was some sort of benevolent leader.

[balrog221]

Also we and the Iraqis owe our troops and indeed our country a great deal. We have and continue to pay a great price on their behalf.

[ralph10]

Yep. And we're smack dab in the middle of it.

[mediamarv]

wonder how this event figures into NPR"s Mara Liason's comments On Special Report, Mara Liasson said of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war, "I think that history will judge him pretty kindly," but made no mention of the ongoing debate over whether the United States should have initiated the war in the first place or whether it has been worth the cost in lives, money, and diverted attention and resources. She also described Bush as "handing over a war that's pretty manageable, if not almost won, to his successor."

Thanks to Media Matters for America for pointing this out.

She seems to specialize in parroting Bush's talking points. Not so much a journalist as a shill it seems to me. So why is she working at NPR?

[balrog221]

Historians will revile W as failed leader and a misguided follower.

[acudoc]

The surge is working. It was just a bomb going off in a crowd of Iraqis. The surge is working.

[markinaz]

That's ok. We are winning, so what's a little "collateral damage" among allies.

[leeman79]

Progress?

[balrog221]

Ask the shoe thrower who did this. Was this the american infidels? NO it was likely an Iraqi. Why don't they protest this and throw shoes at their own extremists. We have repududiated Bush in the ballot box... Iraqis should also look within to understand...

[lornejl]

Clearly Iraqis aren't as smart as you are.

[balrog221]

What can I say to that? The issue for me is that the region needs stability before it can rebuild. The shoe throwing message incites the wrong message for Iraqi progress. Just as the ill advised looting, rioting and internacine violence represented a set back. Is Bush to blame...of course he is.... but that begs the question ... what now? Piss off americans who were willing to fight, die and spend for your benefit? Americans wanted to get it right, but we had abysmal leadership. We have now presumably changed that... so does that message do anything for Iraq and Iraqis?

[lentinelia]

I'm sure it is comforting to the millions of Iraqis displaced and killed during our invasion and occupation of their country that we have "repudiated Bush" - after allowing him to do his dirty work unfettered for eight long years.

[rabiddog6708]

Bu$h said we were winning......he would never lie or mislead us.....so the "liberal media" must be trying to undermine his recent visit to Iraq by reporting these bombings.....all is well, folks.....gol back to your shopping.

[PackyJ]

I liked shoe-throwing a lot better.

[OilWarsDotCom]

bush, brown visiting the scene of the crime.....who is next? sarkozy? Wait a minute, it has to be cheney!

[ggmome]

Bush's 'Victory' visit, stirred this up And he did it for 'Purpose'. Troublemaker!

[MsAttitude]

The suicide bombings have been going on, read the article. It had nothing to do with Bush being there....Find another scapegoat!

[lentinelia]

This story can't be true.
The surge has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams, as we all know.

[bby328]

Are we winning yet?

[mspink]

Glad to see that is doing well. Mission Accomplished, indeed.