100,000

In what I fear is merely the "coming attractions" for the situation in Iraq, 100,00 Kurds took to the streets Saturday to protest.

SULEIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) About 100,000 Kurds demonstrated outside provincial government offices Saturday, demanding that the turbulent, oil hub of Kirkuk be made part of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

A tense confrontation has been building in Kirkuk, with hardline Kurdish politicians demanding the departure of some 200,000 Arabs who settled here during a campaign by Saddam Hussein's regime to increase the Arab population in oil-rich parts of northern Iraq.

See, it really isn't like we can just kill all the bad guys and a stable democracy will appear so we can go home. Creating a functioning nation out of this accumulation of proud, combative peoples, first brought together through British arrogance and stirred since by a vicious tyrant, is a fantastically complex diplomatic problem. Making that functioning nation a democracy will be even harder. I'm pretty sure George doesn't get that.

What caught my eye in this story was the number 100,000. That's the number that the President was using in the debate as the number of trained Iraqi security person. One for one. Except, of course, we have nowhere near 100,000 trained Iraqis, which even the Defense Department admits. So, there are more people demonstrating in favor of the unraveling of Iraq than trained people the Allawi "government" has to hold it together.

But I guess there's nothing to worry about, according to Donald Rumsfeld:

"No one sees any sign of civil war in that country at the present time ... The risk is that the terrorists, and the extremists, and the people who are running around chopping off people's heads and killing innocent men, women and children will take over that country.

"Imagine a country ruled by people who go around chopping off people's heads. That's a dark future."

Apparently the notion that it might just be a return to the status quo ante bellum didn't cross his mind. Oh, but before the war there wasn't so much bomb damage and the electricity was more reliable. Never mind. But if Rumsfeld really thinks that no one sees any sign of civil war, he's even more disconnected than his boss.