Iraq

There are only 9,000 Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad? Isn't the whole plan predicated on the US's 15,000 troops pacifying areas and turning them over to the Iraqis? The General involved asked for 3,000 more Iraqi troops in early June and they haven't shown up yet.

NYTimes and Christian Science Monitor both have articles on the "strained" US military.

(AP) The UN has a new report on the Iraqi death toll for July and August (This is the violence taking place during the Together Forward Baghdad security operation.)

The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July and August hit 6,599, a record-high number that is far greater than initial estimates suggested, the United Nations said Wednesday.....

Of the total for July and August, the report said 5,106 of the dead were from Baghdad.

(Reuters) 38 more bodies found around Baghdad yesterday.

(Reuters Factbox) "The U.S. military said an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in northern Baghdad on Wednesday." One sentence, no headlines, buried. It makes me sick.

Too bad he chose to serve his country rather than be a crocodile hunter.