Time to bring our troops home...

Photo shows Rahim Khudayer attending to his son Abdullah Khudayer, who lies injured in Karkh hospital after a shoe bomber blew himself up during Friday prayers inside the Buratha mosque, one of Baghdad's most important Shiite mosques.

The mosque bombing comes despite a huge new security operation in Baghdad.

There are reports this morning of another American soldier killed and a couple of our soldiers missing. It seems to me that the Iraqi government are operating behind the walls of an American fortress called the Green Zone. I predict that when we leave most of the members of this so-called government will leave with us. Kind of like what happened in Vietnam.

The people with the real power in Iraq are outside the Green Zone...individuals like Sistani and Sadr. I expect they are just waiting for the Americans to leave before they show who is in charge.

Am I too pessimistic about this whole affair?

Photo: Khalid Mohammed / AP (Courtesy of Truthout ).

Update:

More of the same from Iraq. This AP story has some gory details of what has been happening for the past couple of days.