Ouch! Iraq Vows It Will Not Become Another Lebanon

Talk about a sucker punch? That has got to hurt.
The Iraqi foreign minister said that Iraq would not allow formation of a state within a state.
Aswat Aliraq reported:

Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zibari on Thursday said that Iraq will not be another Lebanon, stressing the need to fight militia groups and not allowing the establishment of a state within state.

"The largest security challenges are militia groups and organized crime gangs," Zibari said in an interview with the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper in its Saudi edition.

The Iraqi government's recent battles against the Sadrist movement's Mahdi Army and other armed groups "highlights the government's persistence to prevent Iraq from turning into another Lebanon," the minister said, adding that arms and weapons should be exclusively possessed by government forces.

"The presence of Arab ambassadors in Iraq will provide Arab governments with a clear picture about what is happening," the minister said on the sidelines of his participation in the Arab Ministerial Meeting, held in the Egyptian capital today to address the volatile situation in Lebanon.

In other good news from Iraq...
The US announced that it is planning on turning Al-Anbar Province over to the Iraqis in June.
This is amazing news considering the sprawling province was once believed lost to the insurgency.

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In related news... May 16 was set aside last year as "Mass Graves Day" in Iraq.

During the rein of Saddam Hussein, Hundreds of political opponents were executed in prisons; while thousands more, mostly Shiites were buried in mass graves in the south. The terror he created prevented anyone from asking questions when a relative went missing. With the fall of the brutal leader, Iraqis went seaching. They watched as the dead were unearthed by the thousands in the killing fields near Hilla. Those coming to identify loved ones could finally begin to put the past to rest. In the town of Mussaib, over 400 bodies recovered from mass graves are brought to the Isamic Youth Center, where families walk among the dead in search of their missing relatives. (POY)

I did not see anything on this Iraqi national day of mourning today.
Actually, I didn't expect the mainstream media to mention it but if I see something from the Iraqi news I will post more on it later.