Juan Cole weighs in on whether Wolfowitless was the target

Cole article
Iraqi guerrillas have ferreted out excellent intelligence on key US installations and personnel. They hit the military intel center at Irbil, e.g. And the recent carbombing at the Palestine Hotel wounded Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, a Shiite member of the Interim Governing Council; and it seems likely IGC members staying at the hotel were targets. I'd say the likelihood is that Wolfowitz was being targeted.

Wolfowitz's trip was an unadulterated disaster. His announcement that he was sleeping in Tikrit was clearly a dig at Saddam and the Baathists; but then a Blackhawk was downed there while he was at the US base in Tikrit (one US soldier was wounded). And then his hotel was struck in Baghdad, with a US colonel killed and 17 other persons wounded, several of them military. Wolfowitz was visibly shaken, his voice quavering, immediately after the attack. US personnel were forced out of the hotel, perhaps permanently. The colonel was probably the highest ranking officer killed in Iraq so far.

Regardless of whether or not he was specifically targeted, I still bet he won't be going back any time soon.

The problem with Wolfowitz's trips to Iraq is that they are clearly political, requiring visits to touchy places such as Najaf and Tikrit, to make political points about US dominance of the country. But the Deputy Secretary of Defense should only be visiting Iraq for military reasons, and his visits should be conducted secretly so he can see military commanders and troops. If Wolfowitz goes on campaigning to be mayor of Tikrit, he is liable to get himself killed.

Even short of that, every time he goes he makes himself look clownish, and makes the US look like fools. Wolfowitz is the one who wanted 7 wars and kept talking patronizingly about the ability of the US to reshape Iraq and the Middle East, and he can't even get a good night's sleep when he is there.

Freakin' circus clowns. (I'm not so sure we need Witless to make us look like fools, though.)