Rigorous Intuition

In his blog, Rigorous Intuition, Jeff Wells adds his to the unsettling chorus of voices trying to alert people to the fact that not all reports of violence between Sunni and Shia in Iraq are in fact that, and asking, who would wish to inflame such violence?

There are lots of tidbits here. Like this email from an aide worker:

Since the bombing of the Al-Askari Shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006, local media and friends have deluged the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in Iraq with information. Iraqi Islamic television reported that the U.S. military and Iraqi police were seen at the shrine the night before it was bombed. The next morning, two shrine guards were found alive but handcuffed inside. Baghdadiya television aired the same report. The Minister of Housing and Reconstruction said the job would have taken ten men about twelve hours to set up enough explosives to do this kind of damage. We have not heard this information reported outside Iraq. The U.S. made offers to rebuild the shrine, but the Iraqi Islamic Party asked that repair be delayed until an independent investigation was completed. Samarra citizens have locked down the shrine to preserve evidence.