Baghdad and Anbar make up roughly 25% (maybe slightly more) of the population of Iraq. What about the burgeoning violence in the ethnically divided city of Kirkuk and the surrounding oil rich region? What about Mosul, Fallujah, Ramadi, Takrit, Samarra, Najaf, Kerbala, and the rest of the cities, towns, and villages of Iraq that are not experiencing a surge of U.S. and Iraqi troops? Why won't violence just pop up in classic "whack-a-mole" fashion there instead of in Baghdad?
Baquba is a perfect example of why the current surge in Iraq will not save George W. Bush's and the Republic War Party's failed war in Iraq. We are throwing good money after bad and sending more U.S. troops to their deaths after wasting the lives of 3133 Americans in an unjust and unwinnable war.
Lawlessness turns Baquba into ghost town
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POSTED: 1731 GMT (0131 HKT), February 16, 2007
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
• City of 300,000 nearly shut down because of violence
• Residents live in fear of being kidnapped, tortured and killed
• Resident: "I can't tell you who they are. They will kill me."
By Arwa Damon
CNN
Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. Here, CNN's Arwa Damon describes a recent tour of the Iraqi city of Baquba.
BAQUBA, Iraq (CNN) -- "Watch out for snipers," one of the soldiers said as I stepped out of the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle and stared at the deserted street.
Shops were shuttered, and mountains of trash were piled everywhere. I felt a wave of shock.
When I had walked these streets less than a year ago, the air was filled with the buzz of shoppers, vendors screaming prices and blaring car horns. Rows of stalls were filled with everything from fruits and vegetables to women's lingerie, electronic equipment and music. It was a bustling marketplace.
But now, everything is different in this city of 300,000. Baquba is a virtual ghost town where most residents stay inside most of the day for fear of being kidnapped and tortured or killed. (Watch the desolate scenes of a city living in fear Video)
As I toured the area, down one of the alleys, there was a cluster of people.
"It's been like this for about four months now. Everything just shuts down after 11 [a.m.] because that's when they come and they kidnap and murder," one Iraqi said.
"But I can't tell you who they are. They will kill me. No one can say who they are."
"They" are extremist groups -- Sunni and Shia -- and criminal gangs.
At a minimum, it costs $10,000 to buy freedom from the kidnappers, and that's still no guarantee they won't kill you.
I pressed on. Four women peered down from a balcony and waved, a man rode by on a bicycle, and an empty bus rumbled down the street.
Baquba is the provincial capital of Diyala, an ethnic microcosm of Iraq. It is plagued with a variety of Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias and al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists.
It was always volatile -- one of the so-called "trouble spots" -- yet it still had a local government that functioned. It also had some of the better trained Iraqi Security Forces.
~~~snip~~~
Police among those being slaughtered
~~~cont'd~~~
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