Iraq

(AP) A major bombing of the Shia Khillani mosque in Sinak, Baghdad kills at least 75 and wounds at least 200.

(NYTimes) The US has launched a fairly major offensive in Diyala (10,000 troops) in an effort to retake the region from Al Qaeda and Sunni radicals. (I can't find the link, but in one of the articles there was mention that the 1920's Sunni insurgent group was fighting alongside the US.)

(AP) The British have also been conducting house to house searches in Amarrah.

(WaPo) "He's panicking." Ryan Crocker screams about his lack of State Dept. staff, experience, and resources in Iraq. "Simply put, we cannot do the nation's most important work if we do not have the Department's best people," Crocker said in the memo.

(AP) Key Republican Senator John Warner says he will "publicly more fully discuss (his) views" after his visit to Iraq in August. (Warner will not go to the floor and lambaste the war, but even subtle shifts from Warner have tectonic effects within the Republican Senate.)

(AFP) "Iraq has overtaken Afghanistan as an ideal training ground for Jihadists to export their battle across and beyond the Middle East, experts say."

(IRIN) A new round of ethnic cleansing in Kadhamiya and Shuala neighborhoods in Baghdad.

And, this very weird Newsweek article describing Bush's sympathetic and friendly relationship with Maliki.