August 20, 2003
UN BOMBED IN BAGHDAD
The UN's Baghdad headquarters has been attacked:
Posted by Tim Blair at August 20, 2003 03:18 AMA massive truck bomb ripped through the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding scores, a UN spokesman said.
It may have been a suicide attack, a top US official said.
Among those badly hurt was Sergio Vieira de Mello, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative to Iraq.
A UN official said the diplomat was trapped in his wrecked office, which appeared to be the target of the bombers.
It's gotta be Secretary Rumsfeld's and President Bush's fault for not assigning more Marines to guard the UN headquarters in Iraq. Also, listening to the NPR interview with Secretary Rumsfeld on the way to work this morning, it is clear that the Pentagon spent far too much time planning for catastrophes that never happened (oil fields ablaze, dams sabotaged, immense humanitarian disasters, the potential use of chemical and radiological weapons, and perhaps the off chance that North Korea might decide to get jiggy with South Korea while we were busy), thus wasting opportunities to plan sufficiently for maintaining the fragile Iraqi electrical grid, writing the next chapter on Installing a Democracy in Ninety Days for Dummies, preventing additional acts of terrorism such as the attack on the UN headquarters in Iraq, and, of course, preventing the looting of the Baghdad Museum.
With each passing day, it becomes more and more obvious that the Bush junta is absolutely incapable of establishing Utopia in the cradle of civilization in any reasonable timeframe.
certainly some of them don't.
So the UN have been bombed. The oil pipelines north into Turkey (and south into Kuwait as well I think?) are out of action. The water supply to Baghdad has been bombed and cut off. American soldiers are dying every day. Every day Bush's victorious declaration of the end of major combat operations looks more puerile.
Will brother Jeb be trying to clean this up in 2012?
Posted by: zilla at August 20, 2003 at 04:12 AMQUAGMIRE!!!
Geez, you've had 30 years to come up with better patter than that. You disappoint us.
I'm pretty sure it will Condi rice in 2012, and that we'll be rebuilding the economies of Europe, which will finally have collapsed after 65 years of asshat socialist experimentation, around then.
I'm also pretty sure a greatly improved and enriched Iraq will be hesitant to help out much with our efforts, despite a warm affection and decade-long bond of trust with us.
Posted by: E.A. at August 20, 2003 at 04:24 AMNo one's picked up on my idea of Will Smith/Paul Wolfawitz 2008.
Is anyone still claiming that Iraq is a "distraction" from the war on terror?
Posted by: Sean at August 20, 2003 at 05:02 AMLooks like we have brought the terrorists to Iraq. Easier to hunt them down and kill them.
When do we invade Syria, that is where the truck allegedly came from. It is time to eliminate the last remaining Baath PArty in the middle east.
Posted by: JEM at August 22, 2003 at 01:18 AM