[Kzin]

Hey, don't they understand the whole concept of "puppet regime" ? BAD PUPPET! BAD!

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 31 — Several prominent Iraqi clerics and officials today delivered their stiffest rebuke yet of Israeli airstrikes, condemning civilian casualties in Lebanon even as shootings, bombings, and mass kidnappings continued to plague Iraq.

Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite, described the Israeli bombing that killed dozens of civilians in Qana, Lebanon, this weekend as a “massacre.” Echoing earlier statements made by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, he said Iraqis of all sects were unified against the carnage and eager for a cease-fire.

“These horrible massacres carried out by the Israeli aggression, like what happened at Qana, incite in us a spirit of solidarity,” Mr. Abdul Mahdi said in a speech at a memorial for Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, a revered cleric who was killed three years ago. “It’s time for this nation to stand up and stop this aggression.”

Others who spoke at the event in central Baghdad — including Mr. Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, and Mr. Hakim’s brother Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of a dominant Shiite political bloc — offered similar condemnations of Israel to a gathered crowd of more than 1,000.

In the poor Shiite slum of Sadr City, hundreds of women and children marched today to protest Israeli attacks. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most prominent Shiite religious leader, also issued a statement late Sunday that criticized the “outrageous crime” of killing women and children at Qana.

And the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr said at a separate press conference today that he was “ready to go to Lebanon to defend it if this would stop the war.”

“We, the unified Iraqi people, will stand with the Lebanese people to end the ominous trio of the United States, Israel and Britain, which is terrorizing Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and other occupied nations,” he said. “We do not want U.S. enterprises in the Middle East.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/wo...1cnd-iraq.html

Y'know, I think the U.S. military would be happy to provide Moqtada and his boys transportation to Lebanon if they're serious ......