IRAQ ON VERGE OF TOTAL COLLAPSE

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT ORDERS ALL U.S. EMBASSY WORKERS INSIDE THE GREEN ZONE NOT TO GO OUTSIDE OF REINFORCED BUILDINGS DUE TO HEAVY MORTAR ATTACKS.

Despite President Bush's rosy picture of how things are going in Iraq, the truth is Iraq is in the throes of total collapse.

Late Thursday night there were a series of mortar rounds fired again into the Green Zone, making it the fourth day in a row the Green Zone has been under heavy mortar fire attack.

In Basra, 10,000 Mahadi Army loyalists staged a protest and threaten to kill Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the puppet head of the Iraqi government who was installed by the United States.

Iraq is on the Verge of total collapse.

Embassy workers in Baghdad restricted

Move comes after 2 killed in militant attacks on Green Zone

MSNBC staff and news service reports

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23788065/

BAGHDAD - The State Department on Thursday told all workers at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad not to leave reinforced structures following the deaths of two Americans in attacks on the Green Zone, a heavily fortified area besieged by militants this week.

The Baghdad military command imposed a curfew on the capital from 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Sunday in bid to stem the violence.

One American was killed Thursday by incoming insurgent fire on the Green Zone. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo identified the person as a government employee but said she could give no further details until relatives were notified.

An American financial analyst was killed Sunday in the first volley to strike the zone.

The U.S. military has blamed Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen for the attacks, which come as amid heightened tensions between followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Shiite-led government.

Iraq’s prime minister vowed Thursday to fight “until the end” against the militias in Basra despite protests by tens of thousands of followers of the radical cleric.

Mounting anger focused on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is personally overseeing operations against the militias dominated by al-Sadr’s supporters amid a violent power struggle in Basra, Iraq’s southern oil hub.

"We have made up our minds to enter this battle and we will continue until the end. No retreat,” al-Maliki said in a speech broadcast on Iraqi state TV.

The crisis was seen as a test of the Iraqi government’s ability to eventually take over its own security. The U.S.-led coalition has a minimal presence in Basra after British forces turned over responsibility for the area to the Iraqis in late December.

"Iraq is now responsible for security in Basra," U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said Wednesday.

Expectations for IraqThe events in Basra threatened to unravel a Mahdi Army cease-fire and lead to a dramatic escalation in violence after a period of relative calm that had lasted for months.

"I think there's no doubt that a serious failure here by the central government will really dampen expectations that any success in Iraq is (only) going to be in the near term," Kathleen Hicks of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told NBC News.

The death toll in the Shiite city of Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, also rose to at least 60 in fighting that continued into Thursday, according to a senior police official who asked not to be identified because of security concerns.

The U.S. military said four suspected Shiite extremists were killed in an airstrike but it had no further details.

The police chief
in Kut, Abdul-Hanin al-Amara said 40 gunmen had been killed and 75 others wounded in that southeastern city.

A bomb struck an oil pipeline Thursday in Basra, a local oil official said, declining to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information.

Click on link to read full MSNBC story.