Continuing Violence in Iraq

Dozens of bodies found in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi police found 50 bodies dumped across Baghdad on Tuesday, apparent victims of sectarian death squads, and a bombing at a bakery in the capital killed 10 people in the biggest single attack of the day.

The discovery of the bodies, many tortured and all shot, brought to at least 110 the number found in Baghdad in the past two days, an Interior Ministry official said.

Sec. of State Rice today told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the situation in Iraq is not hurting US efforts to deal with the North Korean nuclear situation.

BLITZER: You know a lot of analysts believe the U.S. has been weakened in dealing with North Korea and Iran by its involvement in Iraq.

RICE: I just don't understand this argument. The United States is quite capable of taking care of several problems simultaneously. Iraq was a desire to finally deal with a threat that had been there for too long. Too many Security Council resolutions violated.

How could she not understand the argument? Point one, the world- and of course the North Koreans and Iranians- can see that the US is bogged down in Iraq and limited in what it can do elsewhere as the US military is stretched too thin. Point two, it is obvious that the US has not been able to handle the military situation in Iraq, virtually eliminating any military threat to any other nation that now expands its WMD programs- the military clearly cannot handle another country since it unable to handle the two (Afghanistan and Iraq) already on its agenda, and the US population has already soured on the current wars and is not likely to be open to additional conflicts.

Again, Woodward's book title is right on the money- State of Denial.

GP