The following editorial appeared in the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday, Feb. 23:
There is a new government taking shape in Iraq, and that is important. But it cannot overshadow the violence that continues to plague the land.
The impressive turnout in the Jan. 30 election, while in direct defiance of terrorists trying to prevent a new government from forming, does not appear to have discouraged them. More than 90 people were killed during holy days for Shi’ite Muslims, who through the elections have replaced the minority Sunnis as the nation’s leaders.
Whether the latest terror attacks are the last gasps of desperate Sunni insurgents or a continuation of the bloody campaign they have waged since Saddam Hussein was ousted, they are no less deadly. The casualties included Army Lt. Adam Malson, 23, of Rochester Hills, Mich., killed by a suicide bomber as he went to the aid of a wounded Iraqi woman outside a mosque near Baghdad. The overall American death toll is approaching 1,500. Recently, three U.S. soldiers were killed and eight were wounded when a roadside bomb detonated near a helicopter doing medical evacuation in Baghdad.
The rate of Americans killed by hostile action has dipped this month to 1.33 a day, compared with 2.42 from May through January. But that is less a measure of progress toward peace than a sign that the insurgents are attacking more Iraqi targets as U.S. forces get sharper about staying out of harm’s way. This past Tuesday, as the Shi’ites chose their candidate for prime minister, a car bomb exploded near a convoy of Iraqi soldiers, killing two. A gunfight erupted between guards at a Shi’ite mosque and masked men who tried to bomb the place. Police also stopped a Sudanese man who was trying to detonate a belt full of explosives inside a hospital.
These kinds of things will not magically halt when a constitution is written and put to a vote in October. The Sunnis show no sign of accepting defeat, either militarily or democratically. There are now 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and it appears they will be there in like numbers for years to come. There hasn’t been much talk lately of an “exit strategy,” and there cannot be while terrorists are free to operate at will. If the United States pulls out before the Iraqi government can defend itself, Adam Malson and hundreds of other Americans and thousands of Iraqis will have achieved nothing for their ultimate sacrifice.
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