Editorial: The bombing of civilians continues in Iraq

A lot went on regarding Iraq last week.  You had US President Barack Obama making his ridiculous speech, the rush to more war, US Secretary of State John Kerry meeting with Iraq President Fuad Masum (pictured below), and much more.




Here, we've repeatedly called for an end to the Iraqi miliatry's bombing campaign of civilians in Falluja (and the Iraqi and US military bombing campaign of civilians elsewhere in Iraq).

So we were most interested in Oliver Holmes and Jason Szep's report for Reuters that "Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday that he had ordered his air force to halt strikes on civilian areas, following attacks by both Iraqi and U.S. jets in large areas of the country held by Islamic State fighters."

We'd applaud that decision.

Would.

We can't right now.

Was it sincere?

We don't know what's in his heart but was it sincere in the sense that al-Abadi actually ordered the military to stop?

If so, it appears Iraq's military is not taking orders from the new prime minister.

BBC News reports today that Falluja General Hospital has again been bombed by the Iraqi military.

Since the start of the year, the Iraqi military has repeatedly bombed both Falluja General and Falluja's teaching hospital.


But the Sunday bombing raises serious questions.

Is al-Abadi lying?

Did he not call for an end to the bombing?

Is he telling the truth?

In which case he did call for an end to the bombing but for some reason the Iraqi military is not following his orders?


If the latter is the case, that's even more disturbing than the thought of yet another lying politician.