Just like Indiana

Yup. Iraq is so safe you or I could walk down the street:

A bomb rocked Iraq's parliament building in the heavily fortified Green Zone Thursday, killing at least two lawmakers in a stunning security breach in the third month of a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown on violence in the capital, officials said.

At least four other people were wounded in the blast, which shook a cafeteria while several lawmakers were eating lunch, initial media reports said.

Mohammed Awad, a member of the Sunni National Dialogue Front, was killed in the blast, said Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the party, which holds 11 seats in Iraq's legislature. Another female Sunni lawmaker from the same list was wounded, he said.

A security official at the parliament building said a second lawmaker, a Shiite member, also was killed. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"We heard a huge explosion inside the restaurant. We went to see what was going on. We saw lots of smoke coming from the hall, with people lying on the ground and pools of blood," a parliamentary official told Reuters by telephone from the scene.

Precautions had been in place
Apparently concerned that an attack might take place, security officials at the parliament were using sniffer dogs earlier Thursday as people entered the building — a rare precaution.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which is also in the Green Zone, said no Americans were injured in the blast.

"We are aware of reports of an explosion in the Green Zone. We are investigating the nature and source of the explosion," spokesman Lou Fintor said. "No Embassy employees or U.S. citizens were affected."

This statement is just stunning. Does the fact that no U.S. citizens were affected make it somehow OK? Or less appalling? We know that Iraqi deaths in this occupation have been of no concern to the wingnut brigade, but is this official U.S. policy?

This bombing, this security breach, is taking place against a backdrop of Bush's much-vaunted "surge", of John McCain's talk of "glimmer of progress. Can we PLEASE, PLEASE, start talking about what a botch job this is and how whether it was ever salvagable or not, it no longer is? Can we please start talking about consequences for those who were its architects, who were the purveyors of the lies that got us into it? If Don Imus can finally pay consequences for fanning the flames of racism and misogyny for the last 20 years, can George W. Bush and the men around him start paying the price of their incompetence and corruption? Please?