Street Battle in Baghdad Smacks of Open Civil War, Kerry Was Right

Ignore the street battle in Baghdad, that Reuters reports today "smacks of open civil war," because the Bush administration refuses to admit that Iraq has sunken into a civil war and our troops are stuck smack dab in the middle of it.

Snipers held rooftop positions as masked Sunni Arab insurgents said they were gearing up for another open street battle with pro-government Shi'ite militiamen in Baghdad's Adhamiya district on Tuesday.

The Arab Sunni stronghold is still feeling ripples from overnight clashes on Monday that appeared to be the closest yet to all-out sectarian fighting.

It's a reality that has Washington scrambling to avert civil war as Iraqi politicians struggle to form a government four months after parliamentary elections.

A U.S. military spokesman said 50 insurgents attacked Iraqi forces in the middle of the night in a seven-hour battle that killed five rebels and wounded an Iraqi soldier.

Fighting was so fierce that U.S. reinforcements were brought in to the northern district, home to some of Iraq's most hardcore Sunni guerrillas and the Abu Hanifa mosque, near where Saddam Hussein was last seen in public before going into hiding.

A U.K. news source reports that the situation is so disastrous, that the U.S. military actually "planning a “second liberation of Baghdad” to be carried out with the Iraqi army when a new government is installed." Talk about missions not accomplished... "President George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, are under intense pressure to prove to the American public that Iraq is not slipping into anarchy and civil war."

Too late... John Kerry was right, when he said in his NY Times OP/ED on April 5, "Now we find our troops in the middle of an escalating civil war." When is the Bush administration going to admit they have failed their mission, they have failed our troops, they have misled the American public and it's time to leave Iraq, as John Kerry has stated.

John Kerry is "the man with the plan," and it's time for Congress and the Bush administration to get on board.

As Ron reported earlier, today, John Kerry announced in an email sent to supporters via JohnKerry.com that "Over the next ten days, we're going to give it another huge push." Kerry will be delivering a speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall on the "critically important topic of war and dissent," and then next week, when the Senate is back in session, Kerry will be working to "force the Senate" to "confront reality" on the situation in Iraq.

If you have not signed John Kerry's "Out of Iraq in 2006" Petition, please do so now -- and pass the word along to everyone you know.