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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - 1123dv-iraq-sadr-attack Shiite militiamen doused six Sunni Arabs with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by, and killed 19 other Sunnis in attacks on their mosques Friday, taking revenge for the slaughter of at least 215 Shiites in the Sadr City slum the day before. The mosque attacks came after the government, in a desperate attempt to avert civil war, imposed a sweeping curfew on the capital, shut down the international airport and closed the country's main outlet to the shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf. The Mahdi Army militiamen, armed with machines guns...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.</p> <p>The savage revenge attack for Thursday's slaying of 215 people in the Shiite Sadr City slum occurred as members of the Mahdi Army militia burned four mosques...</p>

Good lord, if even Henry Kissinger now says that military victory in Iraq is impossible, pretty soon George W. Bush really will be left with just Laura and Barney on his side. The Decider Agonistes must be feeling betrayed and abused these days. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's admission that the war has been "pretty much of a disaster" was just a slip of the tongue, but the president must have felt it as a cut most unkind. And Kissinger? The oracle who has been dropping by the White House regularly to whisper sweet nothings into the presidential ear, urging...

Dozens snatched in mass kidnap at Iraq ministry 2 minutes ago BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms rounded up dozens of men at a government building in central Baghdad on Tuesday and drove off, in what may be the biggest mass kidnapping seen in a city becoming used to such violence. A source at the Interior Ministry said 20 employees of the Higher Education Ministry were seized. But a spokeswoman for the department itself said dozens of men -- "100 or maybe 150" -- had been rounded up, including many visitors to the building. Women were separated from...

The United States has two options in Iraq: stay and try to win, or cut, run, and lose. Attempts to chart a middle course--partial withdrawal or redeployment, accelerated hand-over to the Iraqis, political deals with Syria or Iran--ignore the realities of the military situation. The real choice we face is this: Is it better to accept defeat than to endure the pain of trying to succeed? The U.S. military, under the stewardship of CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid, has worked hard from the outset to avoid creating an Iraqi military that is dependent upon the continued presence of U.S. forces....

Note that this came during a time when the tide was turning against the South. Note how the Southern soldier stands upright, with a broken sword underfoot, while the Northern Soldier is dejected and "broken"... (Where have we heard that before?) Note the phrase, "useless war." Should we have listened to the defeatists back then, and have allowed the odious practice of slavery to go on? Should we listen to the defeatists now, and allow Islamo-fascism to rule the day?

WASHINGTON - President Bush acknowledged Friday that the situation in Iraq was tough and said he would consult with American generals to see if a change in tactics was necessary to combat the escalating violence. Seventy-four American troops have died in Iraq in October, which is likely to become the deadliest month for U.S. forces in nearly two years. “One of the reasons you’re seeing more casualties is the enemy is active and so are our troops,” Bush said in a brief interview with The Associated Press. He said he planned consultations in the next day with Gen. John Abizaid,...

American military units joined with Iraqi forces on Monday in maintaining a fragile peace between Sunni and Shiite communities in Balad, a rural town north of the capital where an explosion of sectarian violence over the weekend left dozens dead. In the aftermath of the reprisals, some residents of Balad asked why American troops had not intervened when the killings began in earnest on Saturday. One of the largest American military bases in Iraq, Camp Anaconda, which includes a sprawling air base that serves as the logistical hub of the war, is nearby. “People are bewildered because of the weak...

Operating between the insurgent Sunni Arab suburbs of Baghdad and the Shiite militia-dominated south, Col. Salam al-Mamuri and his Scorpion commando team were a rarity among Iraqi security forces, American and Iraqi colleagues said: a police unit fighting on both sides of the country's sectarian divide. Mamuri's comparative evenhandedness enforcing the law may have earned him an enemy within his own sect, the Shiites. Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani in Baghdad called it a "possibility and a probability" that the assassination was at least in part an inside job, because the killer was able to gain access to Mamuri's office to...

BAGHDAD - While U.S. politicians and generals in Washington debate the possibility of civil war in Iraq, U.S. officers here and troops who patrol Baghdad daily say it has already begun. U.S. soldiers in and around Baghdad interviewed in the past week cite a long list of evidence that the center of the nation is unraveling: Villages have been abandoned by Sunni and Shiite Muslims; Sunni insurgents have killed thousands of Shiites in bombings and assassinations; Shiite militia have tortured and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunnis. And neighborhoods have become open battlegrounds at night. "There's one street that's...

During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines. No one with first-hand experience of Iraq would claim the country's in rosy condition, but the situation on the ground is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe. Lurid exaggerations and instant myths obscure real, if difficult, progress. I left Baghdad more optimistic than I was before this visit. While cynicism, political bias and the...