What a Difference a Year Makes

From today’s Associated Press report from Baghdad:

U.S. Halts Attacks on Fallujah, Retakes Kut

By Alistair Lyon, Reuters

BAGHDAD, Iraq (April 9) – Bloody turmoil reigned in Iraq on Friday, the first anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s fall, with Sunni and Shiite rebels battling U.S.-led forces and holding three Japanese and other foreign hostages.

U.S administrator Paul Bremer said U.S. forces had unilaterally suspended operations in the Sunni town of Fallujah at midday after this week’s crackdown on guerrillas.

He said the ceasefire would allow humanitarian access and what would be unprecedented talks with insurgents. About 10 bodies lay in the streets of the town west of Baghdad after heavy overnight fighting, witnesses said.

This week’s bloodshed, engulfing the hitherto quiescent Shiite south as well as the bastions of Sunni insurgency in central Iraq, has shown how far the United States is from securing the country whose dictator it toppled on April 9, 2003.

Insurgents attacked a U.S. fuel convoy west of Baghdad on Friday, killing at least nine people, witnesses said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said he saw bodies burning inside the vehicles on fire near Abu Ghraib. He said the convoy included U.S. military vehicles and fuel tankers.

U.S. DECLARES TRUCE

Bremer announced the Fallujah ceasefire after five days of street fighting in which up to 300 Iraqis have been reported killed and U.S. Marines have also taken casualties.

“As of noon today coalition forces have initiated a unilateral suspension of offensive operations in Fallujah to allow for a meeting between members of the Governing Council, the local Muslim leadership and the leadership of anti-coalition forces,” Bremer told reporters.

He did not say how long the ceasefire would last, though an Iraqi politician said it had would go on for 24 hours.

Fallujah residents heard U.S. warplanes and a loud explosion an hour after the ceasefire, but it was not possible to confirm whether there had been a U.S. air strike.

The Marines launched “Operation Iron Resolve” after last week’s killing and mutilation of four U.S. private security guards showed the depth of anti-American feeling in Fallujah.

Earlier on Friday, U.S.-led troops retook the eastern town of Kut two days after Ukrainian forces withdrew after clashes with Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The cleric’s office was in ruins after it was hit by U.S. fire.

Sadr’s followers launched an uprising this week, battling U.S.-led forces in Shiite areas across Iraq. One Ukrainian soldier was killed this week in the fighting in Kut.

Shiite militiamen still control the center of the shrine city of Najaf, where Sadr is thought to be holed up.

In the shrine city of Karbala, overnight clashes between Shiite fighters and Polish and Bulgarian troops killed 15 Iraqis, and six Iranian pilgrims were shot dead near a Polish checkpoint between Babel and Karbala, police said.

The violence erupted as Shiite pilgrims thronged Karbala for Arbain, a religious occasion that climaxes this weekend.

A major international oil conference due to take place in the southern city of Basra later this month was cancelled indefinitely because of security concerns.

NO JUBILATION THIS YEAR

In Baghdad, new razor wire barriers blocked main streets around Firdaws Square where U.S. Marines and Iraqis dragged down Saddam’s statue a year ago. An Iraqi vehicle with a loudspeaker warned people in Arabic to stay away from the square.

It was not clear if the measures were meant to foil possible anniversary protests against the U.S.-led occupation.

Tanks, with names like Beastly Boy, Bladerunner, Blitzkrieg and Bloodlust stencilled on their cannon barrels, guarded nearby hotels used by foreign contractors and journalists.

Posters of Sadr fluttered on a green sculpture symbolizing a new Iraq erected on the plinth where Saddam’s statue once stood.

Where are all of the neoconservative assholes who shouted us down last year? What about their idiotic ex-liberal apologists, like Chris Hitchens? Both groups of bastards have brought us to this.