THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The Army Times has a report on the US efforts in Baqubah and Diyala province.

American soldiers backed by tanks, helicopters and at least one F-16 jetfighter rolled into the eastern part of Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province.

Gunfire could be heard in the main market district, and Sunni imams in four mosques used loudspeakers to call on their followers to fight the Americans, residents said by telephone. They spoke on condition of anonymity over fears for their safety...

...Elsewhere in Diyala, police Col. Ragheb Radhi al-Omairi said 29 members of a Shiite tribe were massacred overnight when dozens of suspected Sunni gunmen raided their village near Muqdadiyah, about 20 miles northeast of Baqouba. The dead included four women, al-Omairi said....

...In Baghdad, Tuesday’s deadliest car bombing occurred when a suicide driver detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi army patrol in Zayouna, a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad. The attack killed 10 people, including six civilians, and wounded three civilians, police said.

Elsewhere in the capital, a car bomb exploded across the street from the Iranian Embassy, killing four civilians. The late morning blast took place a few hundred yards north of the U.S.-controlled Green Zone and sent a huge cloud of black smoke over the city.

But in the VIP Iraqi viewing area Gen Peter "Wrong Way" Pace-Fuzz saw a whole different country.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hailed the progress achieved in Ramadi, where violence was once commonplace, saying “what I’m hearing now is a sea change that is taking place in many places here.”

And back home some folks, tired of all the shit being spread had this to say.

Kathleen Hicks of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies acknowledged that parts of Iraq had seen improved security but she “wouldn’t describe it as a sea change at all.”

“The bigger question is whether any kind of security progress at the pace we’re likely to see is going to translate into a political settlement,” Hicks said. “I think the answer is no.”

Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution saw no evidence of any lasting security improvements anywhere in Iraq. He said Pace’s comment “strains your credibility,” especially on a day when a National Intelligence Estimate predicted that al-Qaida would likely “leverage” its contacts in Iraq to mount an attack on American soil.

But Our Dear Embattled Leader is going to stay his course come Hell or high water (both have occurred in Texas during his reign) and his loyal Republican minions are going to support him to the end.