Some how the American public is brainwashed into thinking Iraq wants us there. The only ones that want us are the Bush puppet regime that was put into power. People think they are being patriotic by putting their children on the Bush sacrificial alter, soon it will be the Obama sacrificial alter.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- A suicide bomber killed 12 people in an Iraqi mosque on Friday while thousands of followers of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrated in Baghdad after parliament passed a pact allowing U.S. troops to remain through 2011.
Some 9,000 people protested in Baghdad's Shi'ite slum of Sadr City after Friday prayers, burning a U.S. flag and holding banners reading "No, no to the agreement." About 2,500 people held a similar rally in the southern city of Basra.
"I express my condolences to the Iraqi people on this grave occasion, in which they are harmed by the ... pact of shame and degradation," Sadr, whose militia has fought U.S. troops many times, said in a statement read to followers on his behalf.
Sadr told his followers to wear black to mourn the passage of the deal, under which U.S. troops will withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities by mid-2009, and leave the country by the end of 2011.
Earlier on Friday, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives-packed vest killed 12 people and wounded 17 others inside a Shi'ite mosque visited mainly by Sadr supporters 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
The U.S. military said the bomber killed eight people and wounded 15 others as they queued outside the mosque to enter for Friday prayers.
U.N. officials say such attacks are aimed at provoking renewed sectarian fighting between minority Sunni Arabs, once affiliated with al Qaeda, and the majority Shi'ites who are now in charge of Iraq.
BAGHDAD BOMBINGS
In central Baghdad a suicide car bomber killed two people and wounded 14 others, police said, and in Sadr City a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol wounded one person, the U.S. military said.
Sadrist lawmakers opposed the security deal with the United States to the last, banging desks and chanting slogans during the parliamentary session that passed it on Thursday.
They consider the U.S. military presence an occupation and want an immediate withdrawal.
The deal curbs U.S. military powers to arrest Iraqis and conduct operations, shifting greater responsibility onto Iraq's security forces to keep the peace. Violence is at four-year lows, but car bombings and suicide blasts are still common.
In the first comments by a senior Iranian figure since the passage of the pact, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads a powerful constitutional watchdog, said Washington had forced its passage with pressure and threats.
"Yesterday, this pact was finally approved despite the ... problems it had. This ratification was not a normal one," Jannati, head of the Guardian Council, told Friday prayer worshippers in Tehran in a sermon broadcast on state radio.
He likened its signing to "somebody standing over your head with a sword," saying Washington had threatened to indirectly overthrow the Iraqi government if it was not ratified.
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Comments: 17 ( 3 removed by Jack E. )
We never belonged there or Afghanistan. If you want to fight terrorists you should go to Saudi Arabia where the real terrorists live and train in the name of their father Bush.
It certainly does NOT by any stretch of the imagination validate your comment, "The only ones that want us are the Bush puppet regime that was put into power."
Answer: NONE!
Bush decided to invade Iraq in April 2001, six months before September 11th, and the official reason was to improve Western access to Iraqi oil.
"President Bush's Cabinet agreed in April 2001 that 'Iraq remains
a destabilising influence to the flow of oil to international markets
from the Middle East' and because this is an unacceptable risk to
the US 'military intervention' is necessary."
The decision for military action had nothing to do with 9/11, the war on terrorism, the UN weapons inspections, weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi human rights, or any of the factors that the US government would like you to believe are the true motives for war.
The only people who will benefit from the war on Iraq are the elite wealthy oil men who finance Bush's election campaigns, and people like Bush who have huge personal investments in the oil industry. Oil company profits have already increased by fifty percent this year because of the war, and the invasion hasn't even started yet!
EVIDENCE OF A SERIOUS CONFLICT OF INTERESTS IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OVER IRAQ
So the whole thing was to get Iraqi oil..........But seven years later we haven't got a drop!
Dan maybe you should take your head out of the sand and look at how many Bush cronies are dealing in Iraq oil? You need to look at something besides the propaganda print coming out of the White House press. Better yet show me something besides your usual noise to prove me wrong.
No flags made in the U.S. Ivan and you flag waver just support Bush insurrection, people that can't do their own thinking do not deserve freedom, you need to be where people like your wannabe chimp dictator can make all your decisions for you.
As soon as you provide something to be proved wrong I'll do my best to prove it wrong, So far all you are doing is flailing about making wild accusations.