Quick Iraq update

Professor Juan Cole's exhaustive analysis, as always, provides clarity:

An internet posting that represented itself as coming from the organization supposedly led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, variously called Monotheism and Holy War and "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia", said Tuesday that its war on the Shiites made an exception for those Shiite groups that opposed US and British occupation of Iraq. These included the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, Shaikh Jawad al-Khalisi, and Shaikh Mahmud al-Hassani.

Al-Hayat: The Sadr movement responded to the announcement, saying that it was an attempt to divide the Shiites.

So, Zarqawi made an offer to try to undermine the Western powers in Iraq...

More fall out from the British Basra raid, CNN:

Iraq's National Security Adviser, Dr Mouwafak al-Rubaie, said he did not know how far security forces had been undermined by insurgents.

"It is a serious violation of sovereignty if MNF has raided a police station," National security adviser Mowafak al-Rubaie told CNN in a phone interview, referring to the multinational forces.