Bush Cannot Provide Security In Iraq... or in the USA

Just another day in Baghdad:

A total of 60 unidentified bodies have been found in various parts of Baghdad over the past 24 hours, an Interior Ministry source said.

The unusually high 24-hour tally was recorded despite a month-long security crackdown in Iraq's capital by US and Iraqi troops.

The source said most bodies were bound and shot in the head and many bore signs of torture...

Morgue officials, who says 90% of corpses in Baghdad are victims of violence, have stopped talking to the media. That's yet another sign of a looming news blackout on the country.

In such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Iraqi officials are now turning to Iran for security discussions:

Mr. Ahmadinejad said, “Iran will give its assistance to establish complete security in Iraq, because Iraq’s security is Iran’s security.”

Juan Cole says the Iraq-Iran leaders summit was as much an oil deal lovefest as a security deal:

Iran and Iraq will cooperate in pumping petroleum from oil fields traversed by their common border, and in its refining. One such project could be online within a year. These fields are far from the Sunni Arab areas, and Iran would help with security, so that they could help the government escape the economic blockade the guerrilla movement has placed on the northern Kirkuk fields, which generally cannot export through Turkey because of pipeline sabotage.

But even that clearly suggests that Iran can guarantee security in Shiite areas where the USA cannot.

And in the meanwhile, there is a huge debate going on in the USA about whether they have lost control of the al-Anbar province militarily, politically, or both. What to do? Rep. Murtha has a new resolution calling for the immediate resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Mind you, the Bush Administraion cannot provide security within the USA either:

Congress and the American public must accept that the government cannot protect every possible target against attack if it wants to avoid fulfilling Al Qaeda’s goal of bankrupting the nation, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate committee Tuesday.

Osama bin Laden, Mr. Chertoff said, has made it clear that scaring the United States into an unsustainable spending spree is one of his aims. In a 2004 video, Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, spoke of “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

“He understood that one tool he had in waging war against the United States was to drive us crazy, into bankruptcy, trying to defend ourselves against every conceivable threat,” Mr. Chertoff said at a hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “We have to be realistic about what we expect and what we do. We do have limits, and we do have choices to make.”

Funny how keen the Bush team suddenly is (less than 2 months from elections) to publicize bin Laden's words, isn't it?

UPDATE: On the flip side of this security issue, the secretary of the US Air Force has advocated testing new weapons on US crowds before deploying them overseas:

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

Funny old world, innit?