Kaboom!

Not that anyone was really expecting the June 30th sham of a transfer of power to go off smoothly but so far, after yesterday's suicide bombing, they won't have Izzadine Saleem, president of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, to kick around any more.

Saleem's murder set off the typical, blustering cliches of business as usual and nothing getting "derailed" and "staying the course" from all of our favourite sources of bluster and cliches, the Bush Admin and the Blair Conspiracy. It even touched off a tumbling of the Almighty Dollar.

"The Governing Council ... has not been intimidated, it has not been defeated," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in an appearance at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, happy to find something else other than abused prisoners to talk about. Talk about your rose coloured glasses. Whew. In addition, the Bush administration insists abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, shown in images published around the world, was confined to low-level guards, though the Red Cross said it was systematic.

The latest allegations came from the New Yorker magazine, which said abuses resulted from a secret plan approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for tougher interrogation methods in the U.S. "war on terror".

Citing current and former U.S. intelligence officials, the report said tougher questioning was part of a plan giving prior approval to kill, capture or interrogate terrorist leaders.

The Bush administration naturally derided the report, called Hirsch, the other of the report, a "terrorist and intellectual thug" and the Pentagon said the abuses had not been sanctioned. Nobody knew about it. Just the prison guards, who talk it up all on their own without any hints or prods or orders from the higher ups.

European Union foreign ministers were set to condemn the abuses, according to a draft text obtained by Reuters. "Such actions are contrary to international law," it said.

Well, Tony Blair didn't say that. He was too busy fighting off his own full blown crisis at home.

The Prime Minister was given the stark ultimatum to find an urgent "exit strategy" for our troops or risk being forced out of office. One of Mr Blair's loyal allies has warned that the PM faces the stark possibility of being "last man standing" if President Bush is thrown out of the White House in the November election.

But this recent killing won't deter him in the slightest because he is a man of "resolve" and with "no reverse".

Prime Poodle Blair says the suicide bombing and subsequent killing will not deter the coalition from its work in Iraq. As he puts it, "there will be no cutting and running."

There will be no cutting and running - you hear that terrorist dogs? You haven't scared Tony Blair one bit and Rummy and President Jesus Bush aren't scared neither!

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw adds the murder won't stop the June 30th transfer of power to the Iraqis.

Not this one anyway.