SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Once again, US President George W. Bush has called on Iraqis to settle their differences -- and on Americans to be patient. But the country's political landscape is becoming ever more complex and its leaders have their own priorities.
A sign with Lufthansa's company logo still hangs on the now bullet-riddled wall in front of the German airline's former Baghdad office. The travel agencies and airline offices that once clustered along this street have long been closed down.
But a branch of the Dar-al-Salam Bank across the street from Lufthansa's former office has remained open. This is where three security guards were reported to have made off with $282 million in a spectacular bank robbery last week.
Baghdad was obsessed with the enormous figure for about a day. But before long an Iraqi-American Web site declared that the bank robbers' spoils were not in fact all that impressive -- especially when compared with the cost of the US military operation in Iraq, which costs US taxpayers $375 million a day, or more than $11 billion a month and around $135 billion a year.
In truth, the bank robbers made off with only $388,000, which is certainly a handsome sum, but a drop in the ocean compared to the numbers both Iraqi and American officials are currently tossing around. The game they are playing is meant to divert the public's attention from the dead, the mutilated soldiers, the war widows and the pressing questions of whether the American nightmare on the Tigris makes any sense at all and when it will finally come to an end. Iraq Plunges Deeper into Crisis (more) By Bernhard Zand
Mark Alexander
