The attacks within the Green Zone began long ago. They have progressed to the point whereby the 'Unity Government' is now vulnerable to their abilities. It's over in Iraq, it has been for a long time (click link above).
The circumstances in Iraq are taking on the 'infrastructure' that Bush surplanted to facilitate nation building as he wanted it. The attacks at the parliament were possible because they were allowed or conducted by the security forces that were supposed to stop such an assault. The Unity Government is a puppet of the Bush White House and the Iraqi people are stopping it's ability to meet and conduct business they see as adverse to their priorities.
Two MPs killed in Iraq
BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament canteen inside Baghdad's Green Zone Thursday, killing two MPs in a major breach of security in the country's most heavily guarded site.
The bombing, which wounded about 20 people including MPs, occurred despite a massive joint US-Iraqi security crackdown launched in the capital two months ago and came just hours after an attack on a Baghdad bridge that left 10 dead.
Attacks in the Green Zone are relatively rare although seven were people were killed in a bombing there in 2004 claimed by Al Qaeda in Iraq.
A security official said that Thursday's attack was carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt, adding that blood and pieces of flesh were scattered across the cafeteria.
A security source named one of the dead MPs as Mohammed Awad, a member of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab party that has 11 seats in the 275-member parliament.
The second killed was a member of the Kurdish Alliance, the second biggest grouping in parliament after the main Shiite Muslim alliance, the source said.
About 10 security officials and 10 lawmakers were also wounded in the explosion that ripped through the canteen toward the end of lunch.
About seven hours earlier, a suicide bomber blew up a truck on a major bridge across the Tigris River in Baghdad, killing 10 people and sending cars plunging from the wrecked structure into the waters below.
Access to the Green Zone - also home to the Iraqi government and foreign embassies - is strictly controlled with access restricted to visitors carrying picture identity cards and required to pass through multiple checkpoints and metal detectors.
Insurgents have, however, managed to fire projectiles such as rockets and mortar rounds into the compound from outside its heavily guarded walls.
In October 2004, at least seven people were killed including two American civilians in bomb attacks in the Green Zone claimed by the then leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi who was slain in June last year.
Although American and Iraqi officials have reported a reduction in execution-style killings since launching a huge security crackdown in Baghdad two months ago, they have admitted that car bombings remain a curse.
"Regardless of the numbers of those who have been unfortunately killed or injured, [the latest casualties] do reflect the gravity of the problems that Iraq is facing," former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi told Al Jazeera television's international channel.
Another 10 people were killed and 26 wounded in Thursday's truck bombing on Sarafiyah bridge, one of the oldest in the Iraqi capital, which collapsed under the force of the blast, a security official said.
River police were seen racing to the scene on patrol boats and divers donned oxygen cylinders to search the murky waters for survivors.
Officials said that four cars tumbled off the bridge that connects the Shiite Atafiyah neighborhood on the western bank of the Tigris to the Sunni district of Waziriyah on the east.
A witness, who gave his name only as Jawad, said that he was on the bridge trying to fix a puncture to his vehicle loaded with cooking gas when he saw a man park a truck nearby and run off.
"I saw the man get out of the vehicle and run away toward Waziriyah. I was astonished and told an army patrol," he said.
The witness said that Iraqi soldiers sealed off the bridge before the truck exploded, perhaps explaining why the death toll was not higher. Security officials, however, said that it was a suicide truck bomb.
On Wednesday, US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell admitted that the overall Iraqi death toll had risen by 10 percent between February and March.
According to Iraqi security officials, more than 2,000 Iraqis were killed in March alone, 15 percent more than in February.
And in a sign that the American military is straining to meet its commitments, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that soldiers will see their tours of duty in Iraq extended by three months.
Gates acknowledged that US forces are stretched with the foreign deployments, however. "There's no question about that."
The new measure allows the army to maintain the surge in Iraq "probably at least" until April 2008, he said.
On Wednesday, the US military also charged that Shiite Iran was supporting Sunni extremist groups known to trigger high-profile vehicle bombs against civilians and security forces.
Washington has regularly charged that Shiite Iran was funding and training Iraq's Shiite militias but Wednesday's accusation that the former foe of Iraq was also aiding Sunni groups was a first.
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