The Boston Globe reported Monday that conservatives, "on the defense over the unpopular war in Iraq, are hoping this week to shift the national security debate to the North Korea missile crisis and to countering terrorism."

While much of the recent media and administration attention has indeed been focused on the North Korean missile tests, violence around Iraq has spiked and "politicians across the country's political spectrum said months of sectarian killings have turned into civil war."

Events in Iraq cannot be ignored for long. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Wednesday morning, acknowledging "there certainly has been an upsurge in sectarian violence." Shortly after he arrived in the capital city, a suicide bomber walked into a Baghdad restaurant and blew himself up, killing seven people and wounding twenty.

A recent attempted security crackdown on Baghdad has instead inflamed tensions. "Sectarian violence has escalated as rival Shiite and Sunni militias have turned entire neighborhoods into no-go zones." The Washington Times reported, "The formation of Iraq's new government and the elimination of terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi have failed to produce the hoped-for decrease in violence in Baghdad, as officials try to deal with increasingly deadly Shiite militias." President Jalal Talabani warned that the nation stood "in front of a dangerous precipice."

Among the main topics Rumsfeld said he wanted to discuss on his trip was security in Baghdad, where the three-day death toll has risen well above 100. Yesterday, "about 200 yards outside civilian entrances to the heavily guarded Green Zone government compound in Baghdad, two suicide bombers blew themselves up, followed shortly by an explosion of another bomb, killing 15 civilians and an Iraqi police officer and wounding four other people." Abdul Rahman, a local Baghdad merchant, said, "The scene was terrifying and tragic. ... After I saw this terrible incident, I closed my shop and I went home."

There have been many horrifying scenes in recent days around the Iraqi capital, including an account by CNN's Nic Robertson that "a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed."

Coinciding with Bush's surprise visit to Iraq in mid-June, Maliki announced Operation Forward Together, a plan to specifically improve security conditions in Baghdad. Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell acknowledged recently that the crackdown has been ineffective. Ambassador Khalilzad said it had not "performed to the level that was expected." And Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman simply stated, "The security plan did not succeed." Baghdad has instead bore witness to the increasing brazenness of the attackers. "This is a new step. A red line has been crossed," said Alaa Makky, a Sunni member of parliament. "People have been killed in the streets; now they are killed inside their homes.

In the past month, new cases in Iraq have led to charges against 12 American servicemen who may face the death penalty in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians. Military officials are warning that "the total of American servicemen charged with capital crimes in the new cases could grow substantially." In the most recent case, Pfc. Steven Green was charged with raping and killing a 14-year old Iraqi girl and three members of her family and then burning down the house, according to FBI and military investigators. Four other soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division have been accused of participating in the rape and murders. A fifth soldier was charged with dereliction of duty for failing to report the crimes. The incident, which is different from the recent atrocities against unarmed Iraqis in Haditha and "deserves a category all to itself," has brought outrage from all corners of Iraq. Iraqi Justice Minister Hashim Abdul-Rahman al-Shebli said, "The ugliness of this crime demands a swift intervention of the U.N. Security Council to stop these violations of human rights and to condemn them so that they will not happen again." 

Maliki responded by suggesting "the immunity given to members of coalition forces encouraged them to commit such crimes in cold blood. That makes it necessary to review it." That demand "could widen a rift between U.S. and Iraqi authorities." The top U.S. commander in Iraq and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq apologized for the incident and explained that damage was done "to the Iraqi people as a whole." Bush pledged that "absolute justice" would be delivered against the soldiers who committed the crimes. The allegations have unfortunately given insurgents an excuse for their murderous violence. An insurgent group linked to al Qaeda recently released a video showing the mutilation of two U.S. soldiers, "asserting that the soldiers were killed in retaliation" for the rape and murders.

Saleh al-Mutlak, a leading Sunni legislator, said sectarian rivalries are tearing apart the seven-week-old Maliki government. "This is a hopeless government. It has not done one good thing since it started, and things are getting worse, not better," he said. "The parliament cannot reach practical solutions because their minds are concerned only with their sect and not the interests of the nation. It looks like this government is going to collapse very soon." The country’s largest Sunni Arab bloc only recently ended its 10-day boycott of parliament. Sunni legislators had suspended their participation on July 2 after a colleague, Tayseer Najah al-Mashhadani, was kidnapped. The Iraqi police force is marked by rampant "brutality and corruption," undermining public confidence in the government.

The inability of the Iraqi forces to "stand up" poses major problems to the Bush strategy. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday asserts that the Bush administration's National Strategy for Victory In Iraq "is inadequate and was poorly planned, backing up some politicians' charges that a prolonged stay in the country is only fueling sectarian violence." The GAO report recommends that the National Security Council outline a comprehensive strategy for Iraq with "milestones" and "metrics" so Congress can assess the progress and the problems on the ground. "We still don't know how long we're going to be there," GAO chief David Walker said. While in Baghdad, Rumsfeld refused to entertain a possible drawdown. "We haven't gotten to that point," he said.

‘The effect the war in Iraq has had on motivating Muslims planning acts of violence in the UK is underlined to senior Scotland Yard officers in a private briefing document compiled by anti-terrorist specialists.

The document, marked "restricted", says the conflict in Iraq has had a "huge impact". It explains that British policy over Iraq and Palestine is used by terrorists to justify their violence, and early progress in reducing the threat to the UK is not expected.

After the London bombings, British counter-terrorism officials intensified their efforts to understand why some Muslims turned to violence. The document, which has been seen by the Guardian, is the product of that work, and was completed within the past three months before being distributed to senior officers across London. The document says in a headline introducing one section: "Foreign policy and Iraq; Iraq HAS [its emphasis] had a huge impact."’

elsewhere …..

Last week, the US Government Accounting Office issued a report that found the administration's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq (NSIV) and other documents are incomplete as they do not fully address all the characteristics of an effective national strategy.

The report listed three main deficiencies in the Iraq plan.

First, it only partially identifies the agencies responsible for implementing key aspects of the strategy.

Second, it does not fully address how the US will integrate its goals with those of the Iraqis and the international community, and it does not detail Iraq's anticipated contribution to its future needs.

Third, it only partially identifies the current and future costs of US involvement in Iraq, including maintaining US military operations, building Iraqi government capacity, and rebuilding critical infrastructure.

US Comptroller-General, David Walker, testfied to the House about the ongoing problem of "massive corruption" in Iraq's oil industry. "It took me about, you know, a second and a half to realize that, obviously, there was massive corruption going on, because the numbers just didn't add up," Walker said. He also said the administration "has resisted for several years providing cost estimates longer than one year in advance," even though "there is a basis to come up with some estimates”.