and the media struggles to keep up.
Violence in Sadr City Embitters Both Sides
"In our minds, it totally changes our opinion about how we think about this area," said Swanson, from Owensville, Ohio. "In a day, we went from a humanitarian mission to combat. It's just amazing that the kids I talked with two, three days ago are the same ones that are throwing the rocks at us as hard as they can."
7 U.S. Servicemen Killed in Recent Fighting in Iraq
Fighting across Iraq continued escalating Tuesday with military spokesmen announcing the deaths of seven more U.S. soldiers over the past 24 hours.
Among the fatalities were four U.S. Marines assigned to the area around the flashpoint city of Fallujah, where a force of over a thousand coalition-led troops mobilized for the mission of restoring coalition authority in what was once a "no-go" city for Americans, and capturing the killers last week of four civilian contractors.
Wire services reported ongoing fighting Tuesday morning within Fallujah itself, but those reports remained unconfirmed by the military.
Coalition forces have shut down the routes in and out of the city and imposed a curfew. But the military is withholding details of the offensive in Fallujah for fear of compromising it.
An Incendiary Cleric Braces His Militia for an Invasion
The Grand Mosque of Kufa has now become the grand arsenal.
On Monday, as American authorities issued an arrest warrant for Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who set off the most serious insurrection so far against the occupation forces, hundreds of his supporters were busy fortifying the mosque here with heavy weapons, bracing for an American invasion.
Read Juan Cole for the real news, but this is how America is seeing it in the newspapers. Since most of Americans get their news from TV, we'll have to see how it gets covered today.