'It's the same old Iraq, just a tiny bit worse than it was last month'
by Robert Fisk

Each time I return to Iraq, it's the same, like finding a razor blade in a bar of chocolate. The moment you start to believe that "New Iraq" might work - just - you get the proof that it's the same old Iraq, just a little tiny bit worse than it was last month.

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"Unknown Soldier" Speaks Out To Bring Troops Home
A soldier back from Iraq discusses the war and the U.S. soldiers fighting that war, the suicides, and much more.

Another excellent Karen Kwiatkowski piece. A must read.

The new Pentagon papers
A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.
By Karen Kwiatkowski

In July of last year, after just over 20 years of service, I retired as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. I had served as a communications officer in the field and in acquisition programs, as a speechwriter for the National Security Agency director, and on the Headquarters Air Force and the office of the secretary of defense staffs covering African affairs. I had completed Air Command and Staff College and Navy War College seminar programs, two master's degrees, and everything but my Ph.D. dissertation in world politics at Catholic University. I regarded my military vocation as interesting, rewarding and apolitical. My career started in 1978 with the smooth seduction of a full four-year ROTC scholarship. It ended with 10 months of duty in a strange new country, observing up close and personal a process of decision making for war not sanctioned by the Constitution we had all sworn to uphold. Ben Franklin's comment that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia had delivered "a republic, madam, if you can keep it" would come to have special meaning.

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Iraq's Transitional Law: Sistani does okay
by Helena Cobban

Juan Cole has excellent links today.

US Intelligence Follies: Why Haven't Cheney, Feith and Chalabi been Impeached?

Sistani warns of his own Assassination, Civil War

Wave of Kidnappings Continues in Baghdad

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