Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Hello? Anybody home?

So Bush flew all the way to Baghdad to pay a surprise visit to the new Iraq government.
He couldn't tell anyone he was coming, of course, just in case all those loyal allies leaked it to the insurgency to set up a rocket attack.

U.S. President George W. Bush (L) speaks as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (C) and his Defence Minister Abdel Qader Jassim listen during their meeting in Baghdad June 13, 2006. (REUTERS/Ahmad al-Rubaye/Pool)

And isn't it just so lucky that they were at home? If he had come a day earlier, they would have been out:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (L) meets Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi in Tehran June 12, 2006. (Stringer/Reuters)

Are we still in Kansas, Dan?
No, Tony, we're not in Kansas anymore.


And here's what was going on in Iraq during Bush's five-hour visit -- I wonder if his helicopter flew low enough to see any of this?

. . . one of the six coordinated bomb attacks lies on a road in Kirkuk . . . June 13, 2006. (Slahaldeen Rasheed/Reuters)


. . . a car bomb exploded in Kirkuk. . . . .(AFP/Marwan Ibrahim)


Iraqi women mourn as they sit near stains of blood . . . Kirkuk. (AFP/Marwan Ibrahim)


. . . a roadside bomb . . . killed 3 civilians and wounded another 8 near a market in central Samarra. . . . (AP Photo/Hameed Rasheed)


. . . a parked car bomb . . . in the al-Washash market Baghdad . . . killed five people and wounded 13 others (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)


. . . a man who was among those killed from a bomb attack . . . in the holy city of Najaf . . . . REUTERS/Ali Abu Shish


Abbas Ahmed . . . injured when a parked car bomb exploded Monday night in. . . Sadr City. . . killed five people and wounded 41. . . (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)


destroyed house from . . . car bomb attack which killed 10 people and wounded 25 others in a market in western Baghdad . . . . REUTERS/Ali Jasim


A man walks away from . . . one of the six coordinated bomb attacks, which killed at least 14 people in . . . Kirkuk. . . . REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed


Iraqis look at a motorcycle, destroyed during a car bomb attack which killed five people and wounded 26 in Balad . . . . REUTERS/Moqdad Abbas


An Iraqi boy holds blood-stained clothes at . . . car bomb attack which killed five people and wounded nineteen in Baghdad's Sadr city . . . REUTERS/Kareem Raheem


Iraqi men spray water onto the burning car owned by Ahmed Ali al-Yasin, the brother of Asaad Ali al-Yasin the head of Samarra city council, after he was injured with his son Othman Ahmed Ali, by the explosion from a timed-bomb attached to the car . . . (AP Photo/Hameed Rasheed)


Iraqis carry mock coffins with pictures of members of the Mehdi Army fighters who died fighting the U.S. forces in 2004, during the remembrance ceremony in Baghdad's Sadr city . . . REUTERS/Kareem Raheem


A man at the scene holds up the body of a small child said to have died during a U.S.-led raid near Baqouba in Iraq, Monday, June 12, 2006. . . . The U.S. military said coalition forces had killed seven terrorists and two children, whilst local residents accused the Americans of targeting civilians. (AP Photo)

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