Has this ever happened to you or someone you know… A properly trained fighter is to expect one thing when a knife is pulled against them. Expect to get cut, just expect it. Then it won’t be a shock when it happens and ability to survive and even win the fight is greatly preserved. Let’s use this analogy for the Iraq troop withdrawal now.
Last week of June we all expected coalition forces to retreat to the perimeter of major cities thus allowing Iraqi forces to unleash their true potential against the enemy. Iraqi’s frontline force is now defending the people and their economy, primarily the Iraq Dinar currency.
June 30th was the official withdrawal date, and on that exact day 37 people were killed by a car bomb in Kirkuk Iraq on THAT day. For everyone who expected to get cut, that would be it. The bombing in Kirkuk is symbolically a cry from the enemy, an enemy that wanted to make a direct obvious statement against massive progress (the troop pullout). Elimination of the euphoria of the troop withdrawal is about the only thing that was accomplished so far by the enemy.
The problems are not over, yet, however, public swimming pools are now opened across Iraq in major cities much more so in years. Public pools are a common target due to large gatherings of people beating the summer heat.
“Senseless”, and…
“difficult days ahead”, were the words of Obama regarding the June 30th bombing in Kirkuk adding
“an important milestone”, Obama mentions about the pull out. Critics blamed the June 30th bombing on the local police for lifting concrete barriers in front of the open market. Removal of the concrete blocks permitted a car packed with explosives to park right in front of store fronts and crowds of shoppers at the market.
Kirkuk Iraq is suppose to have 13,000 local police, but has only 11,000 due to its budget. The local Government of the city declares Kirkuk as the least protected city in Iraq.
Oil prices of $145 per barrel in July 2008 down to $67 a barrel a year later in 2009 is said to be the reason for lack of revenue in beefing up the Kirkuk police force without additional Government funding (yet).
5 years ago the insurgency consisted of: Pro Saddam Against Coalition forces. Today’s fighting is said to be Shiite Muslim and Sunni Muslim fighting over control of the new Iraqi Government. A definitely bloody way of saying – progress.
All victims were Kurds, in the market area. They pressured the police to remove the concrete barriers and offered to get their own security, which never happened. Many locals in the Kirkuk market believed that extra security was not needed since the Americans were leaving. I don’t know about you but as a chess player myself I would have deemed the pull out as a reason to beef up local security and keep the concrete barriers. Satin found a juicy target for that special day.
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This article may be reproduced online and offline
as long as the link remains in this box and the link
is hyperlinked online. Written by Darren Chabluk
for http://DrDinar.com/blog
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