By the way, watching Richard Perle saying that the Surge was only 30 days old yesterday set off alarm bells in many who were posting at Eschaton. And yes, it was two months old on the 11th of March, exactly two months after Robert Gates announced that he would know if it were working in a few months. See: First Gates Milestone Missed Today.

Today, we’re starting off with the usual news;

An explosion ripped through a Shiite mosque during prayers on Monday in Baghdad, killing at least eight worshippers, while a series of car bombs struck the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, killing 12 people, police said.

The attacks on the fourth anniversary of the war highlighted the challenges facing U.S. and Iraqi forces seeking to curb sectarian violence with a month-old security crackdown that has led to a drastic drop in execution-style killings but failed to stop the bombings.

The afternoon blast in Baghdad shattered windows and damaged a wall of the small green-domed mosque that is situated among shops in the central Shorja market area, where a truck bomb killed 137 people last month.
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Iraqi authorities have imposed strict security in the area to prevent car bombings that often target crowded markets.

About an hour later, four blasts occurred in a 35-minute period in different areas of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 30.

Our increased presence is a challenge to the perpetrators of violence. While the maladministration and its warmongers like to say that announcing a timetable would cause a catastrophe, they’re ignoring the catastrophe they’re causing now.

Gates told lawmakers that the U.S. military should know within months after the surge of U.S. troops begins whether the new strategy “bears fruit.” And if it doesn’t, he said in response to a question, “we will have to revisit our strategy.”

More lives do not need to be sacrificed, the proof is here.

The troops can come home now.