Deadly Chaos

Today, hundreds of people died in a stampede in Baghdad, Iraq, while they were marching to a shrine for an annual religious festival. The Sunni insurgency is probably responsible for the attack, carried out in order to try to plunge the country into civil war (the pilgrims were Shias.)

How worse will the situation get before the October referendum on the Constitution? Nobody knows. Who is ultimately to blame for this incident though?

The incident has caused the single biggest loss of Iraqi life since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Yes, Bush's oil-war. Why? Because he invaded Iraq without a post-war plan. Then he tried to rush through a Constitution because he needs to bring the troops back next year, in time for the US midterm elections. So now the Shias and Kurds have agreed on a charter, but the Sunnis reject it. And turmoil ensues.

The bridge [where today's stampede occurred] links the staunchly Sunni area of Adhamiya on the east bank of the Tigris and the Shia area of Kadhimiya on the west bank.

Shia pilgrims have often been attacked by Sunni extremists seeking to trigger civil war in Iraq.

In March 2004 suicide bombers killed about 180 people in simultaneous attacks in Kadhimiya and Karbala.