Iraq

(AP) Sunni clerics beg for Sadr to cancel the July 5th Shia march into Sunni Samarra.

(WaPo) Hidden in a long article about the Baquba operation, "Soldiers are also building concrete walls around the western neighborhoods using a strategy similar to one employed in Baghdad."

(NYTimes) Michael Gordon has a good "day in the life piece" with a unit trying to make progress in Baquba.

(AP) "In a previous assignment, Pittard commanded a brigade combat team in Diyala province for a year. "It was just a few years ago ... where, believe it or not, many people were saying Diyala province was going to be one of the first ... to go to provincial Iraqi control," he said of the thinking in late 2005."

(NYTimes) Col Townsend in Baquba, “When I came here I thought there were 300 to 500 fighters in there because that is what the intelligence told me,” he said. “Does that mean that half or more eluded us? I guess it does.”

And, A rumor that one of the Sunnis leaders "fighting Al Qaeda in Anbar" has skipped town with the US's $75 million.