Iraq quickhits

First, a couple of updates: The US has backed off (bottom) its unbelievable claim yesterday that the deaths in Zafraniyah were caused only by a series of natural gas explosions. I blogged about this too much yesterday.

It does appear that Mashhadani, the Sunni Speaker of the Parliament, could be removed/replaced, although from the sound of it, the majority Sunni political party is on board, so this may not be too big a deal.

An interesting "eye on the ground" version of the politically charged arrest of 5 Health Ministry security officers the other day.

Last, this one just crawled up my butt. Duncan Hunter, the head of the House Armed Services Committee, has had a monument moved over into military possession in an effort to save it. I really don't care about the underlying conflict (it's a big ass cross.) What gets me is that this is the focus of the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee!!!

Doesn't he have more important things he should be doing? Like taking a look at the fiasco that has been the Iraqi training program?

Later: Another attack against the offices of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Mosul. Starting to see more and more attacks against them.