SUNNIS SAY "SURGE THIS, PRES. FREDO"

Security plan draws harsh critiques after bombing
By James Palmer, USA TODAY
4/7/12

BAGHDAD — Some Iraqi legislators declared the U.S.-led plan to secure Baghdad a failure after an unprecedented suicide bomb attack on parliament Thursday capped a violent week in the capital.

"Someone can walk into our parliament building with bombs. What security do we have?" said Saleh al-Mutlaq, who heads the Sunni National Dialogue Front in the Iraqi parliament.

"The plan is 100% a failure. It's a complete flop," said Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, which holds 44 seats in parliament. "The explosion means that instability and lack of security has reached the Green Zone."

"If you add it all up, I don't see how you can conclude the surge is working," said Kenneth Katzman, an Iraq expert at the Congressional Research Service. "The confluence of evidence is that things are falling apart rather than coming together."