July Was Deadliest Month of War for Iraqi Civilians

[cal04]

July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new government has failed.

An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January.

The rising numbers suggested that sectarian violence is spiraling out of control, and seemed to bolster an assertion many senior Iraqi officials and American military analysts have made in recent months: that the country is already embroiled in a civil war, not just slipping toward one, and that the American-led forces are caught between Sunni Arab guerrillas and Shiite militias.

The numbers also provide the most definitive evidence yet that the Baghdad security plan started by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki on June 14 has not quelled the violence. The plan, promoted by top Iraqi and American officials at the time, relied on setting up more Iraqi-run checkpoints to stymie insurgents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?hp&ex=1155700800&en=da411e19ab12be71&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Blue Fire]

1. A House of Cards

That's what the dumya regime has created in Iraq, rather than another source of obscene profits for big oil as originally planned. Oooops.......I mean the destruction of their WMDs.........wait, it was the removal of Hussein from power................ah just give me a second and I'll get it right...............it was to establish a democratic government in a nation rife with violent secular and religious hatred................oh hell I don't know why dumya started this fucking war. He kept changing the reasons! Who's gonna clean up this bloody mess anyway?
Oh, BTW, isn't it supposed to be 'collateral damage'?