Deinonychus antirrhopus

Well, Looks Like Sovereignty Has Been Handed Back

We have given back control of Iraq to the new interim Government. In a secret ceremony today sovereignty was handed back by Ambassador Bremer. The ceremony was two days early and was done in secret, apparently to deny the insurgent/terrorists an obvius day in which to conduct attacks to try and embarass the Bush Administration.

Officials said the surprise move was designed to outflank insurgents who had threatened terrorist attacks to disrupt the handover, and to avoid the complex security arrangements that a public ceremony would have warranted. But it also showed an Iraq too dangerous for top US and Iraqi officials to publicly mark the most significant date since the fall of Baghdad.--emphasis added

I have to say that last part sounds true and looks really bad. I've been starting to move more and more towards the viewpoint of Daniel Drezner on Iraq. That more troops were needed to make the notion of democracy in Iraq viable. I suppose it can still work, but I see it as a far less likely outcome.

Update: Roger Simon has a good post on this. I agree that the early handover was a good idea from the stand point of taking away an obvious day for killing people and destruction. Also, I agree with him that calling the people doing the killings insurgents is misleading. They are terrorists and fascists.