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Length: 6:39
JOHN ROBERTS: Another week of deadly violence takes
Iraq another step closer to the brink, even as Iraq's
neighbors show new interest in bringing peace to the
war-torn nation. Joining me now, correspondent
Michael Ware in our Baghdad bureau. Here in
Washington, CNN military analyst Brigadier General
James "Spider" Marks, U.S. Army, retired; and in Los
Angeles, former "Washington Post" Baghdad bureau
chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran. He is also the author of
"Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Inside Iraq's
Green Zone."
Michael Ware, start us off here. This coordinated
series of attacks in Sadr City on Thursday, more than
200 people killed. Any idea what's behind this
dramatic escalation in the violence there and is
there any way to keep a lid on the reprisal violence
that's probably certain to follow?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is part of a
broader offensive. This is a Sunni strike deep into
the heart of this Shia population. Simultaneous with
a coordinated raid on the Ministry of Health, again
controlled by the same Shia militia and political
faction whose people live in Sadr City and were the
targets of these bombings. We then saw in the day
that followed, retaliatory attacks, entire
neighborhoods being mortared by the Shia. We then
have reports of Sunni mosques being burned and hit
with rocket-propelled grenades. Wild unconfirmed
reports of Sunnis being pulled from their house,
doused in flammable liquids and set alight. So it's
very difficult to stop and this is not necessarily an
escalation. This is just another punctuation in a
long chapter of what really is civil war, John.
ROBERTS: Quite an exclamation point though, Michael.
You had a terrific report on Wednesday. We sent our
cameras to the Baghdad morgue to take a look at how
the sectarian violence is affecting rank and file
Iraqis. Take a look at how Michael reported that
story on Wednesday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARE (voice-over): Viewing bodies is impossible in
the crush, so a large video screen has been installed
with photographs of the dead scrolling slowly past.
With many of the images still bloodied, barely
recognizable, we agreed not to show the screen.
Inside, women hold worn photographs; as men peer at
the screen, a wail rises up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Spider Marks, when you see images like that,
it really drives home what this means for Iraqis and
sometimes the statistics become very impersonal for
us when you hear the numbers. It doesn't really drive
it home. But why is the U.S. military so powerless to
be able to stop this sectarian violence?
BRIG. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY
ANALYST: Well, I don't know that they're completely
powerless, John.
ROBERTS: Spider, 3700 Iraqis killed last month. That
seems powerless.
MARKS: I think what it is, it's a combination of U.S.
and Iraqi forces have got to be able to increase that
type of cooperation. So I mean, you can't just put
this at the -- the blame is not entirely the United
States'. The Iraqis clearly, as we've discussed many
times, have got to step it up and take
responsibility, as has been described many times. And
Michael describes it very, very well. This is kind of
a description of the loss of the center in the Iraq
population, especially in Baghdad. And what you have
is the devolution, if you will, of neighborhood
fights, as you said families upon families. You lose
the center, it's now a matter of protection and to
exact some degree of protection on your family and
some vengeance against those that mean you harm. What
has to happen is you've got to be able to develop
sources, people who are willing to talk, who are
willing to come forward and take great risk to get
ahead of what is the inevitable ensuing violence
that's going to occur. So it's a combination, John.
ROBERTS: I know the U.S. military is trying to do
that. But it seems so difficult to be able to get
ahead of the game there. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, let's
take a look at these latest statistics from the
United Nations. I mentioned 3700 dead during the
month of October. When you look at it, the month of
September and October, the numbers get even worse. In
July and August there was 6,599 deaths of Iraqis.
September and October, that number rises to 7,054. We
don't know what to call this anymore. Is it civil
war? Is it ethnic cleansing? Is it tilting, as some
people have suggested, toward this word genocide?
RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think it
in some ways it's a combination of all three. I think
we in this country risk getting drawn into sort of a
debate over semantics that really takes the eye off
of the most important challenge, which is trying to
fix our failed policy there. I think what we saw on
Thanksgiving Day just once again highlights the real
-- very real problems with the Bush administration's
current strategy in dealing with Iraq. Because it is
based on having multi-ethnic, multi-religious
security forces maintaining order. That was a fine
strategy when we were just dealing with the Sunni-led
insurgency. Now that you're dealing with what some
will call civil war, others will call genocide,
ethnic cleansing, you name it. You're in a situation
where you've got rival groups in the country after
each other and the U.S. security strategy just is not
cut out to fit that kind of civil strife.
ROBERTS: Michael Ware, President Bush is trying to
get a handle on this, trying to gain the upper hand.
He's got this meeting set up with al-Maliki. They
announced that earlier in the week. By the end of the
week, Muqtada al-Sadr had been saying if you have
that meeting, I'm pulling out of the government. What
are the pressures that Maliki faces as he tries to
forge an independent way forward here?
WARE: What is this government? It's essentially a
composition of varying militia forces and their
political factions. So Maliki's government as such in
many ways doesn't exist. And what there is of it
relies on two divergent sources of power; in fact,
opposing sources. One is the U.S. administration that
in terms of security and other measures is propping
him up. But politically, locally, he's drawing his
constituency and his place as prime minister from the
Mahdi army political faction, that loyal to
anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. So his sponsors
are diametrically opposed. And somehow he needs to
try and keep them both happy, which is an impossible
task and only threatens to see things implode.
ROBERTS: When you try to keep everybody happy, very
often nobody's happy. Michael Ware in Baghdad, Rajiv
Chandrasekaran in Los Angeles, "Spider" Marks here in
Washington. Thanks.