Mission Accomplished

Anyone with a functioning brain and a shred of honesty
always knew that the hardest part of this Iraq
adventure would be creating a stable government after
removing Saddam. Fortunately for us, that part of the
deal is someone else's problem.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. ambassador
delivered a blunt warning to Iraqi leaders
Monday that they risk losing American
support unless they establish a national
unity government with the police and the
army out of the hands of religious parties.

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad delivered the
warning as another 24 people, including an
American soldier, died in a string of
bombings, underscoring the need for the
country to establish a government capable
of winning the trust of all communities and
ending the violence.

Such a government is also essential to the
U.S. strategy for handing over security to
Iraqi soldiers and police so the 138,000
U.S. troops can go home. But talks among
Iraqi parties that won parliament seats in
the Dec. 15 election have stalled over deep
divisions among Shiites, Sunni Arabs and
Kurds.

Deep divisions that have existed for centuries. But that
didn’t stop our president from telling Britain's prime
minister only months before invading Iraq that he
“thought it unlikely that there would be internecine
warfare between the different religious and ethnic
groups.”

Like I said... a functioning brain and a shred of honesty.