Iraq - (Despondently: "Four more years. Four more years.")

(Reuters) Police found the decapitated and bound bodies of nine policemen near Ramadi.

(WaPo) An Iraqi army post was blown up in Fallujah.

(BBC) Eight bombs went off in half an hour around Kirkuk.

(AP) A Shia mosque near Shorja in Baghdad was bombed. ("When I arrived, I saw several wounded people being taken by ambulances and they were screaming from fear and injuries. There were bloodstains on the wall and some carpets were burned.")

(AP) "The idea of living alongside Iraqi units has been tough for many U.S. troops to swallow. They are keenly aware that Iraqi security forces here have been infiltrated by Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents.

Giant concrete blast walls often separate U.S. and Iraqi units on large garrisons they share."

(AFP) An Al Qaeda "financier" was arrested in Iraq. "In a video of the suspect's interrogation shown to reporters, ....admits he received money from outside Iraq to fund insurgent attacks." (But they didn't show the reporters the part about where the money came from? Al Qaeda, Saudi, Jordan, Syria?)

(NYTimes) A Sunni parliamentarian's compound was raided by Iraqi forces.

(WaPo) "Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge."

The WaPo, BBC, and others paid for a poll of Iraqis.

Only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in U.S. and coalition troops....

Slightly more than half of Iraqis _ 51 percent _ now say that violence against U.S. forces is acceptable _ up from 17 percent who felt that way in early 2004. More than nine in 10 Sunni Arabs in Iraq now feel this way.

While 63 percent said they felt very safe in their neighborhoods in late 2005, only 26 percent feel that way now.

(NYTimes) For Many Iraqis, Hunt for Missing Is Never-Ending

(AP) Bush to ask for patience in Iraq war