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HALA GORANI: While a relative dip in violence has
some in Baghdad breathing easier, other parts of Iraq
are suffering a surge in attacks.
JIM CLANCY: And noteworthy, a U.S. presidential
hopeful puts his recent remarks about his security to
the test as commanders warn insurgents just may be
shifting their focus in Iraq.
GORANI: Meanwhile, another top U.S. politician also
in the region promoting Middle East peace. We'll see
why the White House is angered over her itinerary.
CLANCY: All right.
First, to a bombing in Kirkuk in Iraq. It's adding to
a recent string of deadly attacks in the north of the
country.
Twelve people reported killed, 150 others wounded
after a truck bomb exploded outside a police station.
Many of the victims were children at a nearby school.
Officials have revised the death toll, meantime, from
last week's suicide truck bombing in Tal Afar. That's
northwest of Kirkuk. They now say 152 people were
killed in that blast, making it the single deadliest
attack since the war began.
GORANI: Well, the U.S. Republican senator and
presidential hopeful John McCain says the world isn't
getting the full picture of the security improvements
in Baghdad. Under heavy guard, he toured an outdoor
market that's been hit by several major attacks in
recent months.
Let's bring in Michael Ware in Baghdad for details of
his trip.
And Senator McCain is arguing that the situation is
safer thanks to the surge in troops, as the White
House is calling it.
How are you seeing that on the ground and McCain's
trip in the context of all of this, Michael?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hala, the
surge and the so-called Baghdad security plan has had
an impact on particular types of violence here in the
capital, Baghdad. For instance, the death squads
don't quite have the free hand they used to have at
night to roam and to kill.
Nonetheless, dozens of tortured or executed bodies
are still showing up on the streets. Al Qaeda is
still getting its suicide bombings through the
security cordons, killing scores here in the capital.
And as this Republican congressional delegation
visited Baghdad, they seem to be investing so much in
the fact that in an envelope of heavy security --
which according to other media reports included three
Black Hawk helicopters, two Apache attack
helicopters, and 100 U.S. troops -- that they could
drive from the airport and walk in a Baghdad market
just three minutes from the Green Zone achieves
nothing.
There are signs of limited progress here in Baghdad.
But this so-called "Baghdad walk" by the members of
Congress does not highlight that.
This has been done time and time again. U.S. generals
and U.S. representatives have often been able to
conduct such walks. There's much better ways of
getting the message across.
GORANI: And what are those ways, Michael?
WARE: Well, it's a matter of highlighting how
sectarian deaths have been dampened, how the death
squads' movements have been restricted, how we've
seen pressure placed upon the infrastructure of the
Mahdi army militia, one of the frontline elements in
the sectarian violence. Nonetheless--
GORANI: I'm sorry to interrupt. What about the rest
of the country? We've seen a lot of...
WARE: Well, that's what I was about to say. At the
same time, we have to accept that from the very
beginning, U.S. commanders said, "expect the
insurgents and the militias to lay low. And watch, as
we've seen many times before, the displacement of
violence."
You focus on Baghdad, they take their attacks
elsewhere, like the border town of Tal Afar, where
150 people are slaughtered in suicide bombing
attacks, and then the police at night go out and
execute 60 or 70 more people just in retribution. You
can't look at a senator's walk in the capital alone
as the measure of progress.
GORANI: And lastly, I've got to ask you about a
report there that said that you were heckling and
laughing during Senator McCain's news conference in
Baghdad.
Is there any truth to that?
WARE: No, there is not, Hala. I didn't heckle.
Indeed, it's been accused that I asked mocking
questions. And as you'll see, I never even asked a
question. In fact, I sat there silently.
This has been a political brouhaha that started last
week. Unfortunately, Senator McCain has had one of
the strongest Iraq policies that most reflects the
realities here on the ground, but last week he made
one gaffe. And when corrected on that, it's now
brought his entire Iraq policy into question, and he
seems to have backed himself into a corner and
invested everything on his so-called "Baghdad walk"
yesterday, even though it was enveloped in such a
blanket of security.
GORANI: All right. Michael Ware, live in Baghdad.
Thank you, Michael -- Jim.