Sadly, it is not unusual for bomb attacks to kill numerous Iraqi civilians. A recent trio of bombings were deadlier than most, killing 43 people, some of them children. What made these attacks different was not the death toll, but the public reaction. The difficult task for Iraqi and Americans leaders is to turn the anger voiced by Baghdad citizens into a powerful force against the attackers.

For the first time last week, state television devoted morning and afternoon air time to footage of that day’s attacks and rescue efforts. Much footage focused on children killed in the three suicide car bombings. Mournful music accompanied the images. The footage was interspersed with call-in shows.

With little else to do on a hot, violent day, Iraqis watched television and then jammed the phone lines. Callers expressed sorrow, anger and frustration. They lamented the killing of Iraqis by fellow Iraqis. Others called for punishment for the killers. While this is not immediately likely, public condemnations of such attacks can have a positive effect.

Just as millions of Iraqis defied insurgent bombers to vote in January, if moderate Iraqis begin to speak out and encourage others to do so, the insurgents can be weakened. Wednesday’s television programming was one small step in that direction.

In one segment Al Iraqiya TV broadcast images of past attacks, showing dead children and wailing men and women. “They were young but were turned to pieces of flesh,” background singers lamented during the video. “Oh, oh Iraq, the land of bloodshed.”

Strong condemnations also came from those who were injured in and witnessed the bombings. “Do they call this holy war, killing civilians in a bus terminal? They are simply criminals,” Kassim Abdul Hadi, a 47-year-old school teacher, told The Washington Post. He was being treated for wounds to his leg and abdomen at a hospital.

“But how can we stop these attacks?” asked a woman who was a passenger on a bus that left a terminal in eastern Baghdad just before a bombing there. “We have a saying in Arabic: ‘It’s hard to catch the thief if he is a member of the family.’ That’s our predicament,” she told the paper.

She may be right. But, showing the carnage on television and allowing people to publicly talk about it could be a potent weapon against the insurgency.