From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

Brooke Gladstone is away this week.

I'm Amy Eddings.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

Well, little did we know when the Golden Mosque was bombed 16 months ago, the horrors that would follow in Iraq.

Now we do know.

And now that shattered country is bracing for more as the desecrated Shiite shrine is hit again.

What problems are to follow? That's what we're looking into.

A bombing at the Alaskaria Mosque and fears of Shiite reprisals. If it sounds familiar, it's because it

happened before, 16 months ago, at the same sacred Shiite shrine.

Indeed, that 2006 bombing has been widely interpreted by the administration and the media alike

as a turning point in the war when a troubled occupation devolved into the chaos of sectarian violence.

But according to Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post, the official

line oversimplifies and distorts the story. He joins us now. Tom, welcome back to on the media.

Thank you.

Before we discuss this week's bombing and the response, I want to talk about the response

to the first bombing. President Bush invoked that attack earlier this year in a speech announcing his

new strategy for Iraq. It sounded like this.

They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam, the golden mosque of Samara, in a calculated

effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran,

formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

Now, the president wasn't entirely wrong, but in that speech, he left some things out, didn't he?

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