Shi'ites suspend formation of government over allegations of American led massacre.

Frayed relations between Iraq's Shiite leadership and the American authorities came under increased strain on Monday as Shiite leaders expressed fury over an American-led attack on a Shiite compound and suspended negotiations over a new government.

The raid on Sunday evening that killed at least 16 people also led the governor of Baghdad to announce a halt in cooperation with the United States, and it led Shiite militiamen to brandish their weapons in the streets of eastern Baghdad and declare their readiness to retaliate against American troops.

The suspension of the difficult talks over the formation of a new government prolonged a power vacuum that American and Iraqi officials agree creates a fertile environment for more lawlessness and sectarian violence.

Are these allegations accurate? I have my doubts, but the Iraqi's have already made up their minds.

But Iraqi government officials and political leaders vociferously disputed the American command's version of events, insisting that Iraqi and American troops had raided a mosque, not a fortified office complex, as a political party meeting was under way and unarmed worshippers gathered for evening prayer.

Khudair al-Khuzaie, the spokesman for the Iraq Branch of the Islamic Dawa Party, said he knew of 16 people killed, all of whom were attending a meeting in the party's office at the time of the raid. The office is accessible through a doorway from the mosque's courtyard. Of those killed, he said, 13 were party members and three were civilians.

Jawad al-Maliki, a deputy to Prime Minister Jaafari's Dawa Party, accused the American command of committing "an ugly crime" that "has dangerous political and security dimensions intended to ignite the fire of civil war."

I hear talk of a tipping point. I think that we are well past the tipping point. What can Americans really do at this point to make everything all better? Nothing!