Meanwhile in Iraq

Swell. Now they're springing the prisoners.

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) Guerrillas shouting "God is great" launched a bold daylight assault on an Iraqi police station and security compound west of Baghdad on Saturday, freeing prisoners and sparking a gunbattle that killed 21 people and wounded 33, police and hospital officials said.

The same security compound was attacked two days earlier by gunmen just as the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, was visiting the site in Fallujah. Abizaid escaped that attack unharmed.

One shop owner across the street from the security compound said he and his neighbors had been told by guerrillas not to open that morning because an attack was imminent.   article

Oh, dude, was that admission ever a mistake. You are on your way to Guantanamo, my friend.

The brazen, bloody battle on the heels of the Abizaid attack raised questions about the preparedness of some Iraqi police and defense units to take on security duties as the U.S. administration wants. After the Thursday attack, Abizaid said of the Iraqi civil defense unit in Fallujah: "Obviously they are not fully trained. They're not ready."

Obviously.

Qais Jameel, a wounded policeman, said some of the attackers spoke in a foreign language. "It sounded like gibberish to me. It wasn't Arabic," he said from his hospital bed, the sheets soaked in his blood.

"If the situation continues this way, I might leave the police force....," said his colleague, Ahmad Saad, who was unhurt in the attack...

"Our problem is that we don't have any kind of heavy weapons, no effective weapons," just automatic rifles, said Sabri, speaking at the police station in a room with bloodstained carpets.

...Also Saturday, demonstrations broke out in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah and the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, where hundreds of angry Iraqis demonstrated against U.S. military raids and searches of their homes.

Carrying placards that read "Today Demonstrations, Tomorrow Explosions," protesters gathered near a giant American-run prison built by Saddam Hussein and demanded the release of thousands of Iraqi prisoners.

"This demonstration is a reaction against the behavior of the coalition forces against our citizens and against the attacks against our houses and the capture of our men and our children," one man shouted during an interview with Associated Press Television News. "They are attacking in the middle of the night against innocent people."

I don't know what to tell you. I think it's a pretty sure bet that we won't be turning over anything by summer.

U.S. plans to hand over power to the Iraqis on June 30 have been shaken, with Iraq's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, demanding elections before the handover date.

U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi left Iraq on Friday after a week-long mission to determine if elections were possible. His spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi, said he doubted a national ballot was feasible by the target date.

Yes, Zsa-Zsa, I think we figured that out. First, Sistani conceded that he'd abide by a UN decision on whether to hold elections when Annan said the UN would go in only if it were safe to do so. Apparently there wasn't quite enough violence to keep the UN from going in. So then, Sistani said he would abide by a UN decision if it were decided that the elections could be held, knowing full well that they can't be held if the violence continues escalating. The old codger didn't get to be head cleric because he was stupid.

That only works for the presidency of the U.S.