Continued fighting reported Nov 17 in Fallujah.
Yesterday, the very cautious but reliable http://icasualties.org/oif/
was obviously wondering why the official figures were so low for
November 15 and had posted a notice mentioning the reporting delays.
Turns out 11 US soldiers are now confirmed killed for that single day.
Now the figures for American dead in Iraq are
Nov 8 ---- 11
Nov 9 ---- 14
Nov 10 --- 9
Nov 11 --- 8
Nov 12 --- 11
Nov 13 --- 9
Nov 14 --- 4
Nov 15 --- 11
Total for 8 days of 77 must be one of, if not the very highest rate of US fatalities since the whole Iraq disaster began. Hundreds more soldiers are maimed for life, of course, and no doubt some of them will die from their wounds in the coming days, while others will eventually commit suicide or become basket cases.
Allawi touts the non-existence of civilian casualties. And to think they used to mock 'Baghdad Bob'.
When you remember that 135 US troops were killed in the supposedly disastrous month of April '04, it tells you something that more than half that number were killed in just over a week this time around.
And for what? Killing 1000 insurgents most of whose bodies can't be found. Allowing the bulk of the Falluja-based insurgents to escape to other cities to cause mayhem there. To capture a deserted and destroyed city whose inhabitants will now hate Americans even more.
Oh, and Abu Ghraib wasn't good enough. We now have videotaped shootings of wounded Iraqis by US troops, shown uncensored all over the Arab and Islamic world repeatedly. Cue upwards of 25,000 more recruits for anti-American insurgency and terrorist attacks.
Meantime, over at the CIA, Porter Goss has told everybody they must back Bush, an order which is greeted by a flurry of resignations.
Meantime, blackboxvoting finds discarded computer cards in Florida that don't match the official totals.
Let's not kid ourselves. What we are witnessing in BushCo is a fascist monster unleashed.