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Iraq, 10 years after

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The 10th anniversary this month of the American invasion of Iraq put Iraq temporarily back in the news. Temporarily and barely. Few people pay attention to Iraq these days. Unless you happen to see it on an Associated Press wire feed you probably will never learn that at least 23 Iraqis died today in car bombings in Baghdad and Kirkuk. Since the United States withdrew its combat forces in December 2011, news out of Iraq seldom makes American newspapers beyond the occasional news brief or short story on an inside page.

Iraqis live in a state of un-peace. Sectarian violence between Sunnis and majority Shiites may have peaked in 2006, when the country was in a state of civil war, but it continues to claim thousands of lives each year. The violence often is blamed on Sunni insurgents, some of whom are affiliated with al-Qaida. Bombings killed at least 65 people across Iraq on March 19, the date in 2003 in the United States that the war began (it was March 20 in Iraq). According to Iraq Body Count, which scours media and official reports in an attempt to keep track of the number of Iraqis killed each day by bombings and gunfire, 370 Iraqis have been killed thus far in March. Some of the victims tracked by IBC probably are victims of plain old crime, but the overwhelming majority are victims of sectarian and politically motivated violence. A car bombing kills three here, an improved explosive device kills five there. Baghdad, Mosul, Musayyib, Kirkuk, Samarra. Police officers, government officials, truck drivers, teachers, diners, passersby. Everywhere and everyone are targets.


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