Three bridges in three days

OK, these aren’t random bombings. This means there’s a strategy behind taking out these bridges, as Juan Cole notes:

Guerrillas are attempting to cause Iraqi society and government to collapse by hitting the infrastructure, and the bridge demolitions are part of that strategy.

This is no longer an “insurgency” against our occupation – this is a civil war. We just happen to be in the middle of it.

The “surge” is a failure.

And to anyone who doesn’t get it – yes, this is our war – if you don’t vote, or if you didn’t vote for those who want to end this war, you’re part of the problem. If you’re not “political”, you’re part of the problem. If you care more about how the Sopranos ended or who won American Idol or Paris Hilton being in jail than the war in Iraq, you’re part of the problem.

Bombings targeting Iraq transportation – Yahoo! News

Suspected Sunni insurgents bombed and badly damaged a span over the main north-south highway leading from Baghdad on Tuesday — the third bridge attack in as many days in an apparent campaign against key transportation arteries.

The United States, meanwhile, sent Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte to Baghdad as pressure increases on Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government to carry through on political reforms aimed at bringing the disaffected Sunni minority into the political process and stem support for the insurgency.

“A lot of missions are ahead of us, on top of them is developing our security forces to handle their national roles in fighting the al-Qaida terrorist group, Saddamists and militias to impose law and order in all the country,” al-Maliki said during the meeting, which was held in the prime minister’s office in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

The attack on the bridge occurred six miles south of a bridge brought down on Sunday by what was believed to be a suicide truck bomber. Three U.S. soldiers guarding that bridge were killed in Sunday’s blast.

The explosion at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday — not thought to be a suicide bomb — struck a bridge linking the villages of Qariya al-Asriyah and Rashayed in northern Babil province, 35 miles south of Baghdad. No injuries were reported.

About 60 percent of the bridge was damaged, but one lane was passable, police said. But debris from the blast fell on the main north-south expressway below, further complicating efforts to reopen that main artery, closed after Sunday’s blast dropped masses of concrete onto the roadway.