Iraq shaken by wave of attacks, killing 86 people

A coordinated wave of attacks killed 86 people throughout Iraq Monday, in the worst single day of violence the country has experienced in a year.

The violence--consisting of 37 separate attacks in some 17 cities and locales, including 11 car bombs, 19 improvised explosive devices and 2 suicide bombers--"touched nearly every region of the country except Kurdistan and appeared to be aimed at security forces in both Sunni and Shiite areas," the New York Times reported.

While no group had claimed responsibility for the bloodshed, the spokesman for the al Qaeda in Iraq affiliate posted a recording to the group's website last week threatening a broad attack, the Times Michael Schmidt and Yasir Ghazi reported.

The White House condemned the violence, but vowed it would not deter recently launched U.S.-Iraqi discussions about a possible follow-on U.S. troop presence in the country. Some 48,000 U.S. forces are currently in Iraq, and the rest are scheduled to depart by year's end under a previously negotiated status of forces agreement between the American and Iraqi governments. However, the Iraqi government announced only late last month that it would begin discussing a possible follow-on U.S. troop presence with the Americans.

"Obviously there have been attacks and we strongly condemn them," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Monday aboard Air Force One en route to St. Paul, Minnesota. However, Carney added, "it doesn't change where we are in the process of drawing down our troops or change the fact that we are, as we have said, in discussions with the Iraqis. And if they make some kind of request we certainly would consider it."

Defense officials and analysts meantime noted that the attacks, which primarily targeted Iraqi security forces, come in the overall context of reduced violence in Iraq this year. Some 178 people were killed in Iraq outside of Kurdistan in July, down sharply from 342 people in June and 321 people in May, the New York Times reported, citing Iraqi Interior Ministry statistics.

Analysts also noted that Iraqi insurgents were predictably and opportunistically trying to make it appear they are chasing remaining U.S. forces out of Iraq, rather than the U.S. drawing down according to a previously agreed timetable.

"This is the kind of thing we expected," a U.S. Defense Department official told The Envoy by e-mail Monday, on condition of anonymity. "Extremists probably want to try to claim credit for what was a planned drawdown of American forces in the country."

"Rejectionists in Iraq are always out to kill people, and linking any particular attack with the issues of the moment is a fool's game--there's always something, and the years-long patterns of violence dwarf any temporary waves," cautioned Tom Donnelly, a military analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, in an email to the Envoy Monday. "And, as the Times story points out, the level of killing in July was down.

"Nonetheless, the decision on whether we stay and in what numbers is a critical one, the one that matters most, and I have no idea what the result will be, or whether this will be the attack that is one too many for faint hearts in Washington or Baghdad," Donnelly added.

Other analysts said Iraq would continue to assume primary responsibility for counter-terrorism.

"This is a serious challenge when people can coordinate attacks and surprise people like this," said Daniel Serwer, a former U.S. diplomat who now runs the PeaceFare website and is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, in a telephone interview with The Envoy. "And the Americans can't do much about it anymore. It's really an Iraqi responsibility. They need to take this responsibility seriously. And I am sure they will."

However, Serwer added, he doubted that it would change U.S.-Iraqi discussions about the American troop presence.

"Frankly, this is not the issue," Serwer said. The prospective U.S. follow-on force, if it materializes, "would have some counterterrorism people, but it won't shift the responsibility to the Americans. That responsibility is with the Iraqis; and it has to stay with the Iraqis."