COMMENTS:
Yes, things are just going swimmingly over there.

"Death Toll for Americans in Iraq Is Highest in 5 Months

The military on Friday announced the death of one American soldier, bringing the death toll so far in April to 69, the highest in five months. The monthly figure disrupted a trend of steadily falling American fatalities that had begun in November." (New York Times)

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"Iraq death toll spikes

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 8, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 44 people have been killed or found dead in Iraq in the past 24 hours.

Some of the victims appeared to have been abducted and killed by sectarian "death squads" that target members of rival religious communities.

The dead include a U.S. Marine who was mortally wounded in the insurgent bastion of Anbar province in western Iraq, police and the U.S. military said.

Three car bombs killed at least 16 people and injured dozens in Baghdad and the Shiite holy city of Karbala, while at least 25 others were killed or found dead Sunday.

Three more people were killed today when insurgents bombed an Iraqi oil pipeline south of Baghdad, and a car bomb and a shooting in the capital killed two Iraqi policemen and the driver of bus carrying government employees to work, police said.

The deadliest single attack occurred Sunday when a suicide driver detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi army patrol leaving its base in Baghdad's Sunni Arab neighborhood of Azamiyah, killing 10 people and injuring 15, most of them Iraqi soldiers, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said.

A half-hour earlier, a car bomb exploded near the Baghdad offices of the state-run al-Sabah newspaper, killing a civilian employee, police Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said.

In Karbala, a Shiite holy city 60 miles south of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle near the main provincial government building, killing five people and wounding 19, police spokesman Rahman Mishawi said.

Elsewhere, three policemen were killed in a roadside bombing in the northern city of Mosul Sunday, police said. Two bodies with gunshot wounds were found in the center of Mosul late Sunday, police said."

With good news like this, It would be a wonder if our troops aren't home by summer.