In the Times, Solomon Moore reports that American soldiers killed 11 members of the Mahdi Army in Kut during an early Thursday morning raid there. Iraqis in the neighborhood describe the raid in apocalyptic terms, describing helicopter attacks, blazing cars and homes, and dead bodies "scattered here and there." The Americans said they were just responding to attacks using assault rifles and RPGs. A spokesman for Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been enforcing a cease-fire for his militia, said the raid would not affect the Mahdi Army's current stand down. Curious, that. Elsewhere, Iraqi cops in Basra confiscated weapons and a "remote-controlled spy plane" from a local weapons dealer. The American military announced it had killed 12 people and freed a hostage in Muqdadiya, north of Baqoubah. An IED killed one person and wounded nine in Baladiat. The Iraqi government announced plans to free thousands of prisoners who have not yet been formally charged or who are still in jail after serving their time. Since most of the 24,000 Iraqis being held in the national prison system are Sunni Arabs, Sunni politicians welcomed this news. "It will be a serious step toward achieving national reconciliation if it has real substance," said Omar Abdul Satar.
The Times' Jeff Zeleny reports that in Iowa, Sen. Barack Obama's chief strategist tied the killing of Bhutto to Sen. Hillary Clinton's 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq war. The Iraq war -- which Clinton supported -- "was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Al Qaeda, who may have been players in this event today," said David Axelrod. "So that's a judgment she'll have to defend." Oh, and did the senator mention he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning? Trying to exploit Bhutto's murder for political gain is pretty cheap and one thing candidates might bear in mind is that her killing might have nothing to do with American president politics and is primarily about ... Pakistani politics.
Walter Russell Mead, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes for the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page that the U.S. is in the Gulf -- and in Iraq -- to protect the smooth running of the global economy, not to secure its own oil interests. It's a burden that has fallen to every dominant world power since the discovery of oil. Otherwise, China, India, Japan, Taiwan and the European states would have to protect their own oil interests with expensive militaries -- which breed military rivalries.
IN OTHER COVERAGE
Washington Post
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Christian Science Monitor
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USA Today
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