By Thomas Caywood and Brian Ballou
Boston Herald, 24 February 2006
Iraq lurched toward civil war yesterday with militants gunning down civilians in the streets and rampaging mobs attacking rival mosques as American aims of forging a stable democracy threatened to blow apart.
“It’s a big setback. I think we’re probably on the brink of civil war,” said U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch.
The South Boston Democrat returned from his fourth trip to Iraq late last month feeling encouraged that the political situation was stabilizing.
But at least 111 people were believed killed in two days of fighting sparked by Wednesday’s attack on a shrine in Samarra, including 47 people executed and left in a ditch near Baghdad.
Some 168 Sunni mosques had been attacked around the country, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted since the shrine attack, according to the Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim Scholars.
“This is a clear indication that our troops need to get in the background, and the Iraqis need to be up front,” warned U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan, agreeing with Lynch that “the situation is developing into an open state of civil war.”
The Lowell Democrat, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the perception of America as an occupier fuels longstanding conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.
But one local father of a soldier in Iraq said the bloodshed underscores the continuing need for American troops there.
“What we’re doing is the right thing. We’re there to bring democracy to the area. People like my son volunteered to go over there to help,” said Patrick Vardaro of Norwood, whose 23-year-old son, Army 2nd Lt. Patrick Vardaro, is serving with the 101st Airborne Divison in Beiji, Iraq.
The fighting between Shiite and Sunni mobs could prove disastrous for the Bush administration, said Carl Conetta of the Cambridge think tank Commonwealth Institute.
“To the extent people have bought into the administration’s view that we’re moving toward a stable democracy, a lot of people will lose hope in that vision,” he said.
Malik Mufti, a professor of political science at Tufts University, said the spasm of sectarian fighting will make the job of American soldiers that much harder.
“It becomes very difficult if you have to pick sides and insinuate yourself in the middle of these things,” Mufti said.
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Citation: Thomas Caywood and Brian Ballou. "Deadly days put Iraq on ‘brink of civil war’," Boston Herald, 24 February 2006.
Original URL: http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=127752
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