The authorities in Baghdad say they are preparing for an exodus of thousands of people from eastern parts of the city.
Fighting between government and US troops on one side, and Shia militia on the other, has intensified recently.
Two football stadiums are on stand-by to receive residents from two neighbourhoods in the Sadr City area.
The government has warned of an imminent push to clear the areas of members of the Mehdi Army, loyal to the anti-American cleric, Moqtada Sadr.
In the last seven weeks around 1,000 people have died, and more than 2,500 others have been injured, most of them civilians.
If only someone could have foreseen this.
From the Fallows article:
ReplyDeleteSo far we've considered the downside—which, to be fair, is most of what I heard in my interviews. But there was also a distinctly positive theme, and it came from some of the most dedicated members of the war party. Their claim, again, was that forcing regime change would not just have a negative virtue—that of removing a threat. It would also create the possibility of bringing to Iraq, and eventually the whole Arab world, something it has never known before: stable democracy in an open-market system.
Gives me the creeps.