10 17 06 Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn’t Intervene

Why didn’t the U.S. troops intervene to save Balad?

10/17/2006 3:00:00 PM GMT

Advertisement (Reuters Photo) A U.S. soldier takes position at the scene of a car bomb attack in Mosul, July 2006 With a new wave of violence claiming more lives in Iraq, Sunni Arabs are fleeing the Iraqi city of Balad, saying that gunmen had been going door to door, giving them two hours to leave their homes, and "burned everything related to Sunnis." "Militiamen gave them just two hours to leave the house. But after half an hour, they broke into the house and killed four of them," The Associated Press quoted Ahmed Ali, a 32-year-old Sunni truck driver who was trying to reach his wife's family in Balad, as saying. Balad is now strewn with dead bodies, as Sunnis in neighboring towns started arming themselves to protect their families against militia raids. 90 people have lost their lives in less than a week as a result of the recent spate of killings and attacks that ripped through Baghdad since Friday, sparked, according to government officials, by the recent discovery of the headless bodies of 17 Shia men. Iraqis are wondering what’s behind the Americans’ weak response to Balad’s crisis? Why haven’t they intervened to stop the bloodletting? According to a New York Times editorial