Back to Iraq

Multiple major bombings in Baghdad, in the Christian districts of Karrada, one targeting the Kurdish Industry Minister. AP, Reuters.

(AP) "Bodies lay in the street next to the smoking wreckage of burning cars. Rescue workers piled corpses into an ambulance parked next to the crumbled facade of a building, while a policeman warned residents to leave the area for fear more bombs would explode."

(BBC) "One woman sat weeping over the crumpled body of her son refusing to allow police or rescue workers to take him away, the AFP news agency reported."

(AP) "Will we see a day in Iraq when violence is completely gone away? I don't think so. It wasn't that way under Saddam," said U.S. Air Force Gen. Lance L. Smith." (He's at a big post at NATO.)

(CNN) Officially, all the political leaders are rallying around Maliki's latest 4 point peace plan.

(BBC) But if you read a little deeper, the support for that plan is more desperation, and no one really expects it to change anything.

(IPS) It sounds like the US is hiring mercenary Sunni fighters from the tribal chiefs in Anbar under the cover of the Maliki deal with tribal leaders last week. (It's Dahr Jamail so it's real, but it's also not very clear.)

(Zaman) Maliki has named Shirwan al-Waili, a Shia, to deal with the PKK.

(AP) 2,729 US soldiers killed, 20,687 wounded thus far.

(AP) The Saddam verdict has been delayed. (I'm sure it's evidentiary and not related to the fact that Iraq is on fire. -mike)

(LATimes) There are still only 15,400 troops operating in Baghdad trying to pacify a city of 6 million. (Houston has about 5,000 policemen for 4 million people, and the president hasn't said "The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Houston."- mike)

(Bloomberg) "A majority of U.S. adults say President George W. Bush has deliberately misled the public about progress in Iraq and opposition to the war matches an all- time high, according to a poll conducted for CNN."

(CSM) "Between 50 and 70 foreign fighters sneak over the border into Iraq every month, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell..... Between January and mid-September, US or Iraqi government forces captured some 630 foreign fighters, according to General Caldwell.

(Funny, when Bush needed a "threat" to justify the Iraq war back in election year '04, Iraq was presented as swarming with foreign fighters, whereas now, after the NIE said Iraq was generating foreign "jihadis" suddenly, there aren't any there. - mike)

Also: Make note that the "Friedman's" are shrinking. It used to be that people would say Iraq will be decided in the next six months, then that became three months, now Khalilzad has lowered that threshold to two.