surge update: Baghdad Judge Killed

[spanone]

snip~More Violence in Diyala; Baghdad Judge Killed

BAGHDAD — Gunmen in two cars assassinated a highly respected Iraqi judge and his driver in western Baghdad as they drove to work on Monday morning, and hours later militants in Diyala Province killed three American-backed Iraqi militiamen who entered a booby-trapped building that collapsed on them when explosives destroyed the structure.

Diyala, just northeast of Baghdad, continues to be the most dangerous part of Iraq, with a mix of militant Sunnis and Shias as well as Shiite-dominated security forces whose history of sectarian conduct continues to be exploited by Sunni Arab guerrillas. In the past two years the guerrillas have turned many parts of Diyala once described by American officials as relatively pacified into their own sanctuaries, after having fled American-backed tribal militias in Anbar Province and Shiite death squads in Baghdad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/world/middleeast/15iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[tekisui]

1. Reports this week confirm what we've known. There is no *surge*.

There was an escalation. The supplemental troops will not be coming home.

[spanone]

2. yet, i saw a cnn report yesterday on how peachy things were going

2007 - the most deadly year in iraq for us soldiers.

[Double T]

3. It's an election year, everything is wonderful and doin' good!

[DaveJ]

4. Blowing up an entire building just to murder three men...

Such an assertion probably would be chalked up as a conspiracy theory in a lot of other cases.