Updated from the top. Please treat this as a blog-within-a-blog, come back often, and scroll down till you hit something you saw on your last visit.

• More straight talk from the troops
• The Real Story about the Iraqi Parliament Bombing
• The Washington Post spins intel
• Malpractice or Malice?
• AQCLU
• Rumors on Green Zone and Bridge Bombings
• In an Instant, a Junkyard of Humanity
• WaPo reporter describes Iraqi parliament bombing — from inside the cafeteria
• Death Toll Reduced In Iraq Parliament Bomb
• Witness to a Baghdad bombing
• It's Time To Play Family Feud! (In Waziristan)
• Crack up: Islamic Army in Iraq splits from Al Qaeda
• America, Iraq, and the question of total war
• Modern Foreign Policy Execution
• Biden Time

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More straight talk from the troops

H/T Michelle

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The Real Story about the Iraqi Parliament Bombing
Posted By Blackfive (H/T: Michelle)

From a State Dept source that works with agencies of the Iraqi Parliament:

First and foremost of all, I want to thank all of you who have rushed e-mails and calls to me to see that I am Ok, in light of the suicide bombing of the Iraqi Parliament cafeteria. It was most heartening.

For those of you who did not care enough to e-mail me, it's OK, I'm all right.

Actually, despite the reporting I've heard from CNN, BBC and NPR, which keeps up the ominous drone of doom about the terrorists breaching the Parliament building in "the heart of the heavily fortified Green Zone," the FACT is the Parliament building is NOT IN the Green Zone. We turned it over to the Iraqis in 2006. And when it was, it was at the outer NW edge of the Green or International Zone.

Of course, no one here especially expects the press, with its now, 4 year old biases to get it right. But that being said, I am beginning to believe there is something else going on here that this episode illustrates, which in an unfortunately perverse way, suggests deeper progress. ...

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Malpractice or Malice?
John Hinderaker

Yesterday the Washington Post reported on the declassification of a report by the Inspector General of the Defense Department as though it were a scoop, in an article headlined "Hussein's Prewar Ties to Al-Qaeda Discounted." The casual reader would get the impression that the Inspector General's report contained some new, maybe even definitive information on the long-debated issue of Iraq's ties to al Qaeda. In fact, though, the IG's report is old news. We wrote about it here, in February. The substance of the report was made public then; the only news that occurred yesterday was that the report itself was declassified at the request of Democratic Senator Carl Levin.

As we noted a couple of months ago, the IG report was something of a joke. It criticized a Defense Department operation run by Undersecretary Douglas Feith for disagreeing with the CIA and the DIA on the significance of intelligence data on the connections between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. Given what we know now about the CIA's performance in relation to Iraq, one would think that rethinking that agency's approach to such an important topic would be applauded. But no--the IG thought it was "improper" for a group within the Defense Department to dissent from the CIA's dogmatic interpretations of the evidence.

Further, the IG's report has already been an embarrassment to the Post. ...

One would think that Smith and the Post, having been burned on this story once already, would be careful to get their facts right the second time around. No such luck. Here is the first paragraph of Smith's story in yesterday's Post: ...

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The Washington Post spins intel
Paul Mirengoff

Last week, the Washington Post ran a story called "Hussein's Pre-War Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted." I wrote about it here. One of the Post's themes (which I did not discuss in detail) was the notion that, while the CIA had concluded Saddam's connection with al Qaeda was slight, Douglas Feith at the Defense Department peddled the contrary conclusion without stating that the CIA disagreed. This is the claim that the Inspector General of the Department of Defense recently made and which Sen Carl Levin has seized upon.

Thomas Joscelyn argues persuasively that this claim distorts the truth. Although there were differences on the subject between Feith and the CIA, both agreed that there were links between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda and both were concerned about these links. CIA director Tenet's position was set forth in a letter to Senator Bob Graham dated October 7, 2002. Tenet reported, "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." He added that Iraq and al Qaeda "have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Tenet went on to warn, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs." Looking ahead, Tenet concluded, "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al-Qaeda, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military action."

Joscelyn also shows that Michael Scheuer who, for better or for worse, had been the head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, was convinced Iraq and al Qaeda were working together. Scheuer later would reverse his position, but the issue with respect to the Feith controversy is the state of play in 2002. ...

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AQCLU
Jules Crittenden

ACLU expresses concern about the human cost of war, but neglects to mention nearly 3,000 American civilians whose civil rights were denied them in a purposeful war crime. The perpetrators of this crime have made no effort to make compensation. It quickly becomes clear ACLU is less concerned with protecting civilians than it is with bashing the troops.  ACLU also may have some factual problems:    

• Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas;
• Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort;
• Inviting U.S. journalists to “embed” with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review;
• Erasing journalists’ footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan; and
• Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties.

Casket photo banning, old story.  Plenty of photos of returning caskets out there.  My newspaper recently photographed a returning casket at Hanscom Air Force Base.  They’ve also allowed cameras in frontline operating rooms for graphic images of severely traumatized GIs. ...

Requiring pre-publication review of embed copy.  That’s a new one on me. Never heard of that.  No one ever asked me to submit copy for review, nor have I heard any of my embed friends complain about that. The only interference I’m aware has been isolated cases of overzealous nitwits who weren’t familiar with the embed regs or ignored them.  I’m not familiar with the erasing of footage incident, and ACLU doesn’t cite any material to support these claims, but it sounds like it might fall under the overzealous nitwit category.

Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties:  ...

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Rumors on Green Zone and Bridge Bombings
Al-Qaeda Accuses Islamic Army of Ties to Arab Intelligence
By Zeyad Kasim

An Iraqi security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information, told Al-Melaf that primary investigations indicate that the bomber who targeted the Iraqi parliament building was a former detainee released last year at the request of an unnamed Sunni official. He added that several bodyguards of parliament members and government officials are routinely detained on different charges and then later released after intervention by officials acting on their weight in the government. The suicide bomber that attempted to assassinate Deputy PM Salam Al-Zoba’i was also a former detainee and a distant relative of the Al-Zoba’i released at his request. ...

The Sarafiya bridge, built by the British in the forties of the last century and later bombed by Americans in 1991 and rebuilt by Saddam’s regime, is one of only two open bridges that connect Shi’ite enclaves in the Sunni-majority Karkh sector west of Baghdad with the Shi’ite-majority Rusafa sector in the east. The other two, one of which is closed to traffic, connect the Shi’ite district of Kadhimiya with the Sunni district of Adhamiya. Shi’ite commuters who want to travel to eastern Baghdad now have to either cross the river and pass through Adhamiya or travel south to the Sunni controlled Haifa Street and cross into central Baghdad. ...

Al-Badeel Al-Iraqi quotes Jawad Sahib, an eyewitness who said he was replacing a flat tire on the bridge when a truck pulled over and its driver suspiciously ran out heading to the Waziriya side of the river. He said he contacted soldiers at a nearby Iraqi Army checkpoint who arrived and discovered that the truck was rigged with explosives prompting them to block traffic on both sides of the bridge but the truck detonated before the bridge was completely evacuated. Several other eyewitnesses had confirmed that the truck was parked on the bridge and that there was a presence of Iraqi security forces prior to the blast that collapsed the bridge. ...

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In an Instant, a Junkyard of Humanity
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, April 12 The bomber blew himself up no more than a few yards away. First, a brilliant flash of orange light like a starburst, then a giant popping sound. A gust of debris, flesh and blood threw me from my chair as if I were made of cardboard.

I was lying on a bed of shattered glass on the floor of the cafeteria in the Iraqi parliament building, covered with ashes and dust. Small pieces of flesh clung to my bluejeans. Blood, someone else's, speckled the left lens of my silver-rimmed glasses. Blood, mine, oozed from my left hand, punctured by a tiny shard of glass.

"Are you okay? Are you okay?" asked Saad al-Izzi, one of The Post's Iraqi correspondents, standing over me, his face framed by an eerie yellowish glow, his voice distant. I did not reply.

I had always thought about this moment. In Iraq, every journalist does. But I did not expect a bomber to take lives inside the Green Zone, the nerve center of the Iraqi government and its backer, the United States. To enter, you must pass heavily armed U.S. soldiers, Peruvian security contractors, bomb-sniffing dogs, body searches, metal detectors and several identity checks. Once you are inside, there are checkpoints sealed by concrete barriers on nearly every stretch of road. Then, more body searches, metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs and identity checks. ... [Do read the whole thing.]

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WaPo reporter describes Iraqi parliament bombing — from inside the cafeteria
Allahpundit

Good but grim reading on a Friday morning. He was interviewing an MP a few yards away from the bomber when the bomb went off and somehow got away with nothing more than a pierced eardrum. Most interesting to me is the paranoia he describes among the MPs when they were herded out into the parking lot, where they would have been easy pickings for a car bomb or another jihadi saboteur within the crowd. I felt the same way on 9/11 walking over the bridge in Manhattan and wondering whether it had been rigged beforehand as a secondary attack.

Richard Miniter was nearby and raced to the scene, where the rumor were already flying:

The witnesses I was able to talk to through the chain-link fence of the holding pen said that the bomber seemed to linger at the edge of second-floor cafeteria until a seat at the center table opened up. Then he calmly walked to that table and sat down. The explosion followed in seconds.

The U.S. Embassy translator, an Iraqi with a trim mustache and a baseball cap, confirmed that the bomber selected the center table in order to maximize casualties.

Speculation among the penned-up witnesses ran wild. Some thought that the bomber had decided to target Mohammed Awad, a lawmaker from the National Dialogue Party, a predominantly Sunni party.

As you might imagine from the name, the National Dialogue Party is moderate, so this may have been a message from AQ to less recalcitrant Sunnis. Three cafeteria workers are being interrogated this morning but early suspicion has focused on the bodyguard of another Sunni MP who hasn’t been named. An Iraqi paper hears from a security source that the bomber might have been arrested in the past and then released at the urging of some power-that-be. If so, it’s an eerie parallel to what happened to Sunni deputy PM Salam al-Zubaie a few weeks ago when he was attacked by his own bodyguard-turned-bomber in a mosque: ...

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Death Toll Reduced In Iraq Parliament Bomb
Al Qaeda-Led Insurgents Claim Blast; One Slain Lawmaker Honored At Emergency Parliament Meeting

(CBS/AP) Iraqi lawmakers expressed outrage and resolve Friday in a rare session of parliament on the Muslim holy day, a day after a suicide bomber ripped through their cafeteria in a brazen attack inside Baghdad's U.S.-guarded Green Zone.

Both Iraqi and American officials Friday revised down their estimates of those killed. The U.S. issued a statement saying one civilian was killed.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that an al Qaeda-linked group had claimed responsibility for the blast. "A knight from the state of Islam... reached the heart of the Green Zone... the temporary headquarters of the mice of the infidel parliament and blew himself up among a gathering of the infidel masters," the Islamic State of Iraq said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site commonly used by insurgents.  ...

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Witness to a Baghdad bombing
Michelle Malkin

Rich Miniter of Pajamas Media reported yesterday from the International Zone, where the Iraqi Parliament was hit by a suicide bomber:

Even though the blast was less than 15 feet away through a wall, it sounded like a dull thud followed a small tremor.

I was in the shower at 2:30 PM — my first in days — when the bomb inside the nearby convention center went off. The center is used by the Iraqi parliament.

There was no shouting or sounds of panic in the first few moments. More like quiet astonishment. The Green Zone is supposed to be an island of safety.

As I hustled into my clothes, one marine called to another in the bivouac: “Was that another mortar?”

“That was no mortar,” the other said.

I ran after them and clambered over the green-sandbagged concrete wall that had sheltered the CPIC (Combined Press Information Center) from the brunt of the blast. The ambulances were pulling up along with armored humvees.

I roamed widely, taking in the scene and talking to eyewitnesses. ...

Rich describes the chaos after the bombing as mostly Peruvian guards rounded up everyone in the building and kept them in a pen. Still, he was able to interview eyewitnesses and gather info:

[...]

Read the whole thing. ...

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It's Time To Play Family Feud! 
Ed Morrissey

The situation in Waziristan has become so complicated that one needs a scorecard to know the players. Now the Pakistani government says their army has allied themselves with Taliban-supporting tribes in their fight against al-Qaeda elements in the mountains -- even though AQ supports the Taliban in its fight with the Afghan government:

President Pervez Musharraf made a tacit admission yesterday that the Pakistani military has entered into a marriage of convenience with pro-Taliban tribesmen.

The tribesmen have been fighting foreign militants linked to al-Qa'eda, who are resident in the country. Pakistani military officials had denied direct involvement in fighting between the tribesmen and the foreigners, who have taken shelter in the lawless area of South Waziristan. ...

Now Pakistan has a foreign force in their border area conducting a shooting war against Pakistani tribes. They have little choice but to align themselves with their own citizens against the foreign terrorists, but they've decided to spin this into a fight against al-Qaeda. The problem with that narrative is that Musharraf has aligned his forces with tribes that support the Taliban with fighters and resources. ...

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Crack up: Islamic Army in Iraq splits from Al Qaeda
Allahpundit

A ray of sunshine on an otherwise dark day. I posted about the two groups’ marital problems on Friday; they went public with their difficulties today but it sounds like it might be more of a trial separation than a divorce.

An Iraqi militant group has highlighted the split in the ranks of the Iraqi insurgency by having its spokesman give a television interview in which he accuses al-Qaida and its umbrella organization of killing its members and pursuing the wrong policies…

“We don’t recognize (the Islamic State of Iraq). It is void. There is no state under crusader occupation. There is resistance,” al-Shimmari said…

Al-Shimmari’s comments provoked a series of postings on Islamic Web sites by militant sympathizers, who said they were saddened by the split.

He said the Islamic Army used to be very close to al-Qaida in Iraq, but the two groups had increasingly diverged since al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike last June…

He seemed eager to indicate that the division was not irreconcilable. He said the Islamic Army had refrained from turning its guns on al-Qaida.

The Islamic State of Iraq is the pan-jihadi Sunni emirate declared by AQ to which various other insurgent groups have pledged allegiance. As for the bit at the end, that may simply be IAI’s way of dangling hope for a new alliance to dissuade AQ and its cronies from attacking them. Roggio thinks the split is real and seems to suggest that the group will now be joining the Sunni “awakening” or counterinsurgency, although honestly, at this point I’m starting to wonder just how significant the awakening is. ...

On the other hand, don’t kid yourself — to the extent that it’s happening at all, the awakening is possible only because U.S. troops are still there. If we pull out, it’s Sunnis versus Shia with the former sufficiently outnumbered by the latter that they won’t have the luxury of purging the foreigners in their midst unless the Saudis come in and supply some manpower for them. ...

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America, Iraq, and the question of total war
If the war in Iraq is really worth fighting, then America should fight with everything it's got.
By John Dillin (Hat tip: 1st Cav)

Washington - Omar Bradley, an American general in World War II, observed: "In war there is no second prize for the runner-up." In a similar vein, the legendary Gen. Douglas MacArthur cautioned his fellow Americans: "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."

Despite such warnings, America's political leaders today – in both the White House and Congress – have waged the war in Iraq as if defeat were acceptable. One wonders why.

Although the United States has sustained more than 3,000 battle deaths and has spent billions of dollars in Iraq, the nation's overall fight against Saddam Hussein and his successors has been marked by hesitation and half-steps.

That's how wars are lost.

The Allies won WWII against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan with an all-out effort and resolute orders from the top. President Franklin Roosevelt called for "total war" on the Axis powers. He demanded "unconditional surrender."

Are America's current leaders that tough? ...

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Modern Foreign Policy Execution 

Mark Safranski, the ZenPundit of 4GW (fourth generation warfare), has earned quite a deserved reputation for his studies. This, of course, is an essential subject – indeed, critical to the accomplishment of U.S. foreign policy in an asymmetrical warfare world.

Mark Safranski, below, writes a guest post for Democracy-Project readers which is MUST reading: ...

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Biden Time 
Greyhawk

Busy, busy, busy...

Screw Iraq:

Bush's Troop Initiative Doomed, Biden Says

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said yesterday that the Bush administration's "surge" strategy in Iraq is doomed to fail and criticized Gen. David H. Petraeus for offering what he called an overly optimistic assessment of the situation on the ground.

Biden, in an attempt to separate himself from the crowded Democratic presidential field, also asserted that none of his principal rivals for the nomination has offered a viable plan for success in Iraq.

Invade Darfur:

WASHINGTON - Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential candidate, called yesterday for the use of military force to end the suffering in Darfur.  ...

From reading Biden's own words on his declaration of American defeat in Iraq, his main problem with "the surge" is that it hasn't accomplished it's goals yet - violence is only down where the surge troops have deployed. Apparently the other half of the troops shouldn't even bother deploying. ...

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In case you missed a day:

• 2007.04.12 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup
  • Dems Invite Muslim Brotherhood to Speak to Congress
  • Bureau of Disinformation
  • Baghdad Report: Bombs and A Bridge Too Near
  • Suicide bomber infiltrates Iraqi parliament, kills three; Update: MP’s bodyguard, wider plot suspected; Update: Bomb video added
  • Three Lawmakers Killed in Bomb Attack on Iraq's Parliament Building
  • The troops in Fallujah speak
  • Explosion In Green Zone Kills Two
  • McCain Unbound
  • Congressman Proudly Claims Syria Trip 'Led To Embarrassment'
  • Enmity Begins at Home
  • "Fighting Back Was Not an Option" Revisited