“I would like to agree with the idea that violence in Iraq has decreased and that everything is fine,” retired general Waleed al-Ubaidy told IPS in Baghdad. “But the truth is far more bitter. All that has happened is a dramatic change in the demographic map of Iraq.”
And as with Baquba and other violence-hit areas of Iraq, he says a part of the story in Baghdad is that there is nobody left to tell it. “Most of the honest journalists have left.”
“Baghdad has been torn into two cities and many towns and neighbourhoods,” Ahmad Ali, chief engineer from one of Baghdad’s municipalities told IPS. “There is now the Shia Baghdad and the Sunni Baghdad to start with. Then, each is divided into little town-like pieces of the hundreds of thousands who had to leave their homes.”
Many Baghdad residents say that the claims of reduced violence can be tested only when refugees go back home.
Many areas of Baghdad that were previously mixed are now totally Shia or totally Sunni. This follows the sectarian cleansing in mixed neighbourhoods by militias and death squads.
Remember the golden rule when hearing the Bush administrations side on anything, "If they are talking, they are lying".
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Don't feed the trolls!
It just goes directly to their thighs.