Drive Bombers Ravage Iraq

Just as Colin Powell said in his February 2003 speech at the U.N., there really are weapons of mass destruction at a place called Musayyib.

Of course, they're not the phony WMDs about which the secretary of state was lying—and which he "showed" on slides. Rather, they are drive bombers, who have arrived in Iraq only since the Bush regime's cooked-up invasion.

Capping a week of unprecedented suicidal violence in Iraq, a man with explosives strapped to his body ran up to a fuel truck at a gas station/vegetable market today and blew up everything and everybody. This happened in Musayyib, south of Baghdad, and the toll so far is 60 people dead and at least 80 more injured.

This comes only three days after more than 20 children were blown up in Baghdad by another drive bomber. In that tragedy, in which nearly 70 others were injured, the terrorist saw them flock around a Humvee to get candy from U.S. soldiers, drove up and blew himself and the kids to smithereens.

This wasn't the first time that U.S. soldiers have accidentally lured gaggles of Iraqi kids to their death. As the BBC reported Thursday:

Wednesday's blast killing dozens of children is said to have taken place as a US patrol passed through Baghdad's eastern al-Jedidah district, populated mainly by Shia Muslims.

At the nearby Kindi hospital, correspondents reported hundreds of distraught relatives wandering along blood-soaked corridors shouting and screaming as they looked for their children, many of whom were badly mutilated.

A bomb blast in Baghdad in September last year killed at least 34 children.

That attack also saw the victims gather round US troops who were handing out sweets, to mark the opening of a water treatment plant.

Today's massive explosion in Musayyib occurred near a Shiite mosque and once again sent parents into what are surely not the last throes of agony. As Sami Jumaili of Reuters reports:

Some people who rushed to the scene discovered they had lost loved ones.

"After the bomb I went over there and found my son's head. I could not find his body," said Mohsen Jassim of his 18-year-old son.

At least 16 more people were blown up by bombers today. This follows Friday's events, in which 10 terrorists blew themselves up through Baghdad, taking more than a score of people with them.

Jumaili reports that Al Qaeda quickly claimed credit for today's Musayyib bombing, crowing on a website:

The operation is continuing as planned, and we warn the enemies of God of more to come. We ask our Muslim brothers around the world to pray for God to grant us victory.

Iran is likely to have more to do with Iraq's future than either George W. Bush's God or Osama bin Laden's God.

It wouldn't surprise me if the most earth-shaking event in the Middle East on Saturday turned out to be not the Musayyib blast but instead the historic meeting in Tehran between Iraqi and Iranian government officials.

Ominously for the neocons' big plans, Iran and Iraq, which fought a long and deadly war in the '80s, are now talking about their "common security" needs and sound like long-lost brothers now reunited. As the Guardian reports:

"We can compensate for the coldness of past relations and become a role model for the region," Iran's first vice president Mohammad Reza Aref said after meeting with [Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim] al-Jaafari.

Iran was ready to work with Iraq to provide security as well as political and economic assistance, Aref said.

"This is a new chapter in relations with Iraq. In the future, we will witness a sharp change and promotion in the relations," he said.

Al-Jaafari noted the two countries' long history.

"It is an old relation based on mutual interests and we are facing common security concerns," he said.

Smart move by Iran to reach out to Iraq so forcefully. Iran hated Saddam, but we were greedy and wanted his oil, so we overthrew him. As Iraq devolves into full-fledged civil war, look for Iran to try to actually step into Iraq to help their Shiite brethren bring order or at least hold the fucked-up federation of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds together.

Wonder what the blustering Bush regime will do when Jaafari, under pressure from his homies to get the American occupiers out of Iraq, welcomes the Iranians with open arms?