Car Bomber Penetrates Green Zone
33 Deaths in Guerrilla Violence

The Washington Post reports that "A car bomber penetrated the heavily fortified Green Zone in the center of the capital on Tuesday but was stopped by U.S. Marines at a checkpoint before he was able to detonate the vehicle, the military said."

He got all the way into the Green Zone. That is where the US Embassy is, where the parliament meets. This car bomb could have done enormous damage. And it got past the outer gates! The Green Zone is not safe-- it has received mortar shells, and there have even been circulars warning of the danger of insurgents kidnapping people from it (!). But to get a whole car bomb in there . . .

Now the guerrillas are just shooting down school teachers. Earlier their main target had been Iraqi soldiers & police and recruits. Guerrillas did kill 9 police recruits on Tuesday and wound 21 in the eastern city of Baqubah. But now simple school teachers are apparently considered "collaborators." Or maybe they were killed for being Shiites.

Speaking of Shiites, Iraqi authorities on Tuesday discovered the bodies of 22 persons, probably Shiites, over near the Iranian border. They were probably pilgrims from Baghdad on their way to the Iraqi holy city of Karbala, who had tried to avoid the ambushes that frequently befell such pilgrims by Sunni Arab guerrillas based in places such as Latifiyah.

A member of the Baqubah council was assassinated.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, guerrillas bombed the HQ of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, wounding three guards. The KDP is led by Massoud Barzani, and doesn't have a significant presence in the Shiite south, so it is sort of odd that they have a party office in Najaf or that Sunni Arab guerrillas would target it there.

Congress is giving Bush another $40 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, taking the total for both to $400 billion.

By the way, in Afghanistan the old warlords appear to have won big time. This is not good.

The United Nations is urging member states not to send Iraqi asylum seekers back to Iraq, since it is too dangerous.

Saudi Arabia has spent $1 billion to secure its borders with Iraq so far this year.