2500

Posted by Evan Derkacz on AlterNet
June 15, 2006 at 9:45 AM.

The Pentagon announced today that the 2500th American soldier was killed in Iraq. Meanwhile, the latest "resolution" from the Republican leadership on the war is filled with justifications and spin, with little regard for the facts on the ground.

CBS News "new developments" hardly paint a picture of an insurgency in even its second-to-last throes... more like an Iraq our president had to "sneak into" without notifying the Iraqi government:

• A survey published Wednesday reports that more than 650,000 Iraqis have fled their homeland for Jordan and Syria since the beginning of 2005. According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, violence has forced over 40 percent of Iraqi professionals to leave the country.
• Funeral services were held Tuesday in London for CBS soundman James Brolan, 42, and Monday in Bedford, England, for CBS cameraman Paul Douglas, who was 48. CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier, seriously wounded by the same bomb that killed Brolan and Douglas in Iraq on Memorial Day, is at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland and is doing a lot better than in the first days after the attack but still has a long road to full recovery.
• The House passed a $94.5 billion bill Tuesday to pay for continuing U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, hurricane relief, bird flu preparations and border security at home. The House-Senate compromise bill contains $66 billion for the two wars, bringing the cost of the three-year-old war in Iraq to about $320 billion.
• The new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, vowed to defeat "crusaders and Shiites" in Iraq, according to a statement posted on the Web Tuesday. "It's no secret the ferociousness of the battle that is going on between the soldiers of right and the soldiers of wrong, the crusaders, the rejectionists (Shiites) and apostates in Iraq," the statement said.
• The chief judge in Saddam Hussein's trial said Tuesday's session would be the last day to hear defense witnesses, suggesting he wants to quickly wrap up the proceedings despite defense complaints about being rushed. Abdel-Rahman also scolded the defense team, telling them to stop what he called political speeches.
• Iraqi police found eight bodies, including one policeman, in western Baghdad Tuesday.
• A professor at the Engineering College of Baghdad University was gunned down in a drive-by shooting as he was leaving his house in the upscale Mansour neighborhood Tuesday.