It’s been a week of the deadliest fighting in Iraq since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations one year ago.
12 U.S. marines were killed in an ambush in the Sunni triangle city of Ramadi; this while deadly fighting continues in neighboring Fallujah.
This Sunni resistance to the American-led occupation of Iraq is not new; these are many of the Saddam loyalists who lost power and prestige when the U.S. ousted the Iraqi president.
The anger that has been brewing among tens of thousands of Shiites in cities south of Baghdad came to a head this week, spurred on by a radical Shiite cleric with his own militia — and a message of violence against the occupation. The new front — and new foe — in the war in Iraq.
Guests:
Amatzia Baram, visiting senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and scholar of Iraqi politics
Robert Orr, executive director for research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government
Dan Murphy, Arab World Correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor
Fuad Hussein, adviser to the Ministry of Education