Daylight Abduction!

So there's no civil war in Iraq, huh?

Well, you could have fooled me!

Says the Times of London:

GUNMEN dressed in police uniforms seized scores of hostages from an Education Ministry building yesterday in one of the most audacious raids seen in a city where mass kidnappings have become routine.

In a chillingly efficient raid, about 20 armed men stormed the ministry’s scientific research institute in the usually peaceful suburb of Karrada, brushing aside five armed guards.

Abed Theyab, the Higher Education Minister, first reported that up to 130 people were taken. Later, the office of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, said that 45 to 50 people had been taken.

Late last night, state television, quoting an Interior Ministry spokesman, reported that most of the hostages had been freed in operations by security forces in Baghdad.

It took the gang, shouting: “Separate the women from the men”, between 10 and 15 minutes to seize and drive off with their prisoners in a heavily armed convoy.

Shia militias. Sunni terrorists. Despicable acts and atrocities against fellow Iraqis. Mounting death tolls for our servicemen. And elected Prime Minister Al-Maliki's response?

“What is happening is not terrorism, but the result of disagreements and conflict between militias belonging to this side or that,”

Brilliant!

If the Iraqi government isn't serious about creating a unified nation, then Iraq will fall. The erupting civil war will consume innocent Iraqis across the country. When the last blood has been spilled, the survivors will all know who to blame.

The buck for Iraq's fate since the fall of Baghdad ends with the US. If the administration and the new democratically-led Congress can't find a way to resolve the mess that's emerged, the US will suffer the reprecussions for years.

Memo to Washington, DC: elections over. Get to work!