Stange, a German, coaches Iraq's national team. Despite the violence and disorder racking the country, his side qualified top of their group for the Asian Soccer Championships and now rank 52nd in the world, better than Scotland, Wales or Austria.

But Stange says he is fed up working with meagre resources and accuses the U.S.-led occupying coalition of failing to support his work, which he argues could go a long way to bringing a sense of normality and national pride back to Iraq.

"I'm tired of begging for money for my players and for myself," he told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

"I'm thinking about my personal future," he said. "I can't hold on much longer."

Oh my heart breaks. Compare your life to - oh, say - about 120,000 soldiers who are actually trying to make a difference in the world...and you can't hold on much longer?

Shut the hell up you whiney German child.

Think of Iraq and you will probably think about conflict, danger and uncertainty; you almost certainly will not have thoughts about ice cream.

But there is still room for treats in the midst of the troubles there.

It's fresh, it's cold and it's popular -- Al Faqma, located in the centre of Baghdad, is Iraq's best-known ice-cream parlour.

It doesn't offer "31 Flavours" or "Strawberry Saddam", but does specialise in the best ices this side of the Euphrates.

"We are trying to restore a sense of normality to our lives," said ice-cream fan Rana Al-Oubaydi...

Al Faqma's pistachio flavour is so good that in the old days, ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is reported to have sent his bodyguards down here each week to pick up a few pints.

The managers of Al Faqma appear to have won some favours in return.

The store never had any difficulty obtaining the French natural flavourings and colourings it uses, despite the decade-long United Nations trade embargo.

Ah, yes...those embargo busting French.

"Why are they saying such things?" a bitter Dr. Khodheir al-Hazbar, the hospital's deputy director, said. "We were good to her."...

Khafazji, speaking at his private clinic in Nasiriyah, said he examined her extensively and would have detected signs of sexual assault.

An Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed Friday — apparently shot down by insurgents — killing all six U.S. soldiers aboard and capping the bloodiest seven days in Iraq for Americans since the fall of Baghdad.

In retaliation, American troops backed by Bradley fighting vehicles swept through Iraqi neighborhoods before dawn Saturday, blasting houses suspected of being insurgent hideouts with machine guns and heavy weapons fire.

"This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them," said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment.

Russell also said the 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew, which had been lifted at the Oct. 27 start in Iraq of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, was reinstated Friday night.

The reason that I have been friends with some of you for so long is because we never talked about things of this nature. I knew better than to bring up politics or the war or my feelings about France with you because I didn't want to upset our friendship.

I don't have access to the exchanges that culminate with statements like this

I can’t always guess what it is that will anger or alienate you; if you wrote a comment about it we could discuss the particulars and try to understand each other better, but I don't really think we'll do that.


But in this post Sarah seems to be on the verge of dismissing her friends, or her friends dismissing her, for having a political point of view.

Perhaps because AFN TV just showed the CMA awards tonight I am reminded of the Dixie Chicks and Barbra Streisand. Some absolutely terrific music there...I mean just cotton pickin' wonderful music. Have you ever heard Barbra sing "What are you doing the rest of your life". To die for. And I don't know if country music ever put together three more talented women than the Dixie Chicks.

But then one of 'em has to go and mouth off in England. Has to go say something on the order of they are "ashamed" to be from Texas, the same state as the President of the United States. And Barbra has to go and set up this web site where she spouts off about such concepts as political "honesty" and "hypocracy". (This from a Jewish woman who recorded a Christmas album...)

Ashamed? Is that true? If folks ask "from where do you come" do you look down at the your feet, and kick up a little earth as you mumble "Texas".

Doubtful.

I think what you meant was you don't agree with the President on certain issues.

At least that is what I hope you meant. Because from where I sit it seems a low threshold to get to the "ashamed" condition.

Me...I'm ashamed of times that I've lied or cheated. But I'm not ashamed of a coincidence. Geez...if my tread wear indicators are showing to that extent I need to get off the highway and buy some new tires.

Fact is, I love all these ladies' music. But once they demonstrated an intolerance to my political views, I have trouble listening to their music.

And for a while I thought it was because the Dixie Chicks existed to whatever extent in my life for their music...and that once thay used that stage to express their politics...well, they violated our contract...the one which had me listening for the love of music...period.

Reminds me a bit of John Lennon's faux pas comparing the popularity of the Beatles with that of Jesus. (Another case of hyperbole, to be sure...)

But now I'm revising my assessment of the reaction. I think my reaction to recoil to the Dixie Chicks' statement is almost Newtonian in nature...an equal and opposite reaction.

I saw a bumper sticker in the office of a co-worker the other day. It was a Texas flag with these words overprinted: I'm ashamed to be from the same state as the Dixie Chicks.

"Ashamed" used to mean something. It meant something before Natalie Mains used it...but she cheapend it. Because she isn't really ashamed to be from Texas. Seems to me if she were...she wouldn't tell a bunch of Brits she is from Texas...an approach that gives her a 49 in 50 chance of them mis-guessing where she is from.

Words mean things. Or they did before Tide became "ultra" and tooth whitener became "extreme".

Hyperbole is the polarization of language...and with it society.

I once heard a learned man give an explication of the role of language in society. He posited that language is the facilitator of advancement. Concepts, he said, can not take root and spread unless we have the language to accurately communicate them. Concepts can not advance beyond our linguistic means to communicate them.

The edges of the political parties have hyperbolized the language...to the point that for the sake of general discussion there seems to be only two choices from which to select...this or that.

But in our hearts we know that such polarity isn't really the case.

Tom Daschle is the north pole. Pat Robertson the south pole. But me - don't personally know anyone who lives at the poles. I know I don't.

There is room for discussion...Zell Miller, former Governor and now Senator from Georgia has proven that this week. He has boldly attempted to reclaim the center for the common American. A center in which discussion has impact, hyperbole has no place...a center in which "words mean things."

They use "ultra" and "radical" to sell sodas to 13 year olds. As adults, we should be capable of more precise use of the language.

As a career logistician in the US Army I studied and knew much about what the Army calls Lines of Communications (LOCs) LOCs are the paths by which one echelon of the Army reaches out and feeds the another that which it requires.

Language aka "communication" is the medium by which we feed one another, contact one another...not isolate one from another.

In my opinion trying to grok, and many more among us are victims of the shortcut of hyperbole...the polarization of ideas into simplistic camp A or camp B when in fact ideas exist on a spectrum.

I once thought of dictionaries as the language police. The enforcers of an absolute linguistic standard. But in my own lifetime I've seen that dictionaries have transformed the "acceptable" pronunciation of the word "often" from simply "OF-FEN" now to include "OFF-TEN"

Dictionaries will not protect us from the devolution of speach and communication. That job is up to people...dictionaries only reflect popular usage.

There is a wealth of lingustic spectrum between black and white, between left and right, north and south.

Would that we have the discipline and good sense to protect that spectrum before it disappears.

Would that we have the intelligence to accurately portray the subtlties of our ideas over their presentation in mere black/white terms.

Would that we could protect our friendships and stop being angry all the time.

What say you?

Israel Aircraft Industries was frantically engaged in damage control yesterday after an unprecedented security lapse allowed a Channel 10 television technician to capture an internal screening of a secret missile test via an ordinary satellite dish.

Repudiating decades of U.S. policy, President Bush said Thursday the United States and its allies have been wrong in "excusing and accommodating" a lack of freedom in the Middle East. He prodded Saudi Arabia and Egypt to lead Arab nations toward democracy...

"As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish," he said, "it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.

Saudi police arrested six al-Qaida suspects in a clash in Mecca that left two militants dead in the streets of the sacred city, the Saudi interior minister said Tuesday.

In Monday's raid, police shot it out with the militants and also uncovered a cache of weapons, including Kalashnikov rifles, grenades and bomb-making materials...

The captured extremists "are without any doubt from the same organization," Prince Nayef told the state-controlled newspaper Al-Riyadh, referring to al-Qaida. "They use the same tactics."

Ask him if his life is better, and he doesn't hesitate. "Now," he says, "I can stand up as a man."

There's a weird disconnect between the debates raging in the West about what's happening here, and the way Iraqis talk. Sometimes it's as if the Western media and the Iraqis are discussing two different countries.

Solar power bases will be built on the Moon that collect a small fraction of the Moon's dependable solar power and convert it into power beams that will dependably deliver lunar solar power to receivers on Earth...

The Lunar Solar Power (LSP) System does not require basic new technological developments. Adequate knowledge of the Moon and the essential technologies have been available since the late 1970s to design, build, and operate the LSP System.

I could not believe my ears. “I apologise for the inconvenience,” said the Iraqi policeman as he finished searching our car. We were at the checkpoint in front of the Alhamra hotel in Baghdad.

Over the past week I had grown accustomed to ‘the rediscovered humanity’, as another policeman put it, of Iraq’s law enforcers. But this was too much.

With its policemen behaving like this, it is little wonder that Iraq is being perceived as a threat by its neighbours. Any visitor from most other Arab countries, where an encounter with the police is considered lucky if it is limited to verbal abuse, may be so shocked by this treatment as to return home bent on regime change...

As the eight days went by, I started to revise assumptions formed under the influence of western news coverage dedicated almost exclusively to the reporting of violence.

90 tons of Georgia Jet sweet potatoes which grow in the Ramot Hashavim area in Israel have already left for Iraq, in order to feed the soldiers of the American army who are stationed there, Ma'ariv reported

How we respond now matters. What plays out in Iraq will define how the rest of the Arab and Muslim world respond to America in the years ahead.

If we are seen as weak, we will suffer death from a thousand cuts. If we are seen as strong – having given evidence of possessing the will to use our strength – the world has a chance at peace for another generation.

Baring such decisiveness, the world has likely less than five years until nuclear weapons fall into terrorist hands. We do well to remember their demands are not for negotiations, but capitulation and a Muslim society.

As he walked into the house, Saddam asked one of his nephews who headed the messenger team, "did you inform Tahir?" in reference to his intelligence chief.

The nephew replied affirmatively.

Tahir, however, was not in the house.

For Saddam, his absence meant only one thing: a trap.

The Iraqi leader immediately fled from the Al-Mansur villa on foot, crossed a narrow street and walked several hundred yards until he reached a main road where Taha Yassin Ramadan's taxi that was waiting.

"I am sure of this information," the source said.

The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East has created a covert commando force to hunt Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and key terrorists throughout the region, according to Pentagon and military officials.

The new Special Operations organization is designed to act faster than other units on intelligence tips about "high-value targets" and not be limited to where conventional U.S. forces are operating in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Pentagon officials and military officers said the new, more flexible force has already gotten close to Saddam but declined to give details.

(emphasis added)

Poland suffered its first combat death since the aftermath of World War II when a Polish major was fatally wounded Thursday in an ambush south of Baghdad.

"Sometimes I would be listening to a song on television and he would say: 'Fear God. Why are you listening to songs?"' Khalid Ibrahim recalled.

Read it here.

Spc. Francis Marie Vega was a lover of music who wanted a career in dance after she left the Army. Her name and rank were called out in a solemn roll call. She was not there to shout "present."...

About 1,000 U.S. soldiers, some wearing spurs and black regimental hats from the Indian Wars of the Old West, gathered at the regiment's western Iraq headquarters to remember the 15 comrades...

Command Sgt. Maj. John R. Caldwell read the roll call before the helmets, combat boots and rifles of the victims. The rifles stood in a row, their barrels down, each topped by a helmet and framed by the empty pair of boots.

The roll call works like this: Generally the senior enlisted man of the unit, whether the company first sergeant (1SG) or, at higher levels, the command sergeant major, will - at an appropriate time during the memorial service, call the roll of the unit.

And it goes like this back and forth between the 1SG and the members of the unit:

"Sergeant Avery"

"Here First Sergeant"

"Specialist Brown"

"Here First Sergeant"

"PFC Charles"

"Here First Sergeant"

"Specialist Vega"

(No response, only silence)

"Specialist Vega"

(No response)

"Specialist Vega"

(No reponse)

"Sergeant Williams"

"Here First Sergeant"...

It is almost the aural eqivalent of the familiar "missing man formation" of the Air Force.

I saw coverage of this on CNN this morning.

I wept.

As the Army closed out fiscal 2003 at the end of September, so many soldiers had raised their right hands to re-enlist that the service met its retention goals and then some, retaining 106 percent of the soldiers it hoped to keep.

Family's car, with pet inside, stolen on shopping trip to Poland

Thieves got Wilson’s 1991 535i BMW, all of her family’s overnight bags, her husband’s wallet, her children’s school bags and the family dog, Princess, a Maltese.

At least four U.S. soldiers died in the crash Friday of an Army Black Hawk helicopter near the north-central city of Tikrit, the military in Baghdad said based on preliminary reports.

But a U.S. officer on the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity said that all six on board were dead.

It was not known whether the aircraft went down due to mechanical failure of hostile fire, a spokesman said.

The helicopter went down about 9:40 a.m. on a riverbank along the Tigris River about a half mile from the U.S. base in Saddam Hussein's former palace. The military said it did not know how many people were aboard.

Stuff here is the same. WORK, WORK, WORK!

Today is 180 days deployed!

Tomorrow night I am throwing a 180 day celebration party for the GATORS at our MWR [Morale, Welfare and Recreation] building. We are having finger foods and watching our 500 pictures slide presentation. It should be fun.

As I said...it is only fleeting contact...but contact it is. And she sounds terrific!

Jessica Lynch was brutally raped by her Iraqi captors.

That is the shocking revelation in "I Am a Soldier, Too," the much-anticipated authorized biography of the former POW. A copy of the book was obtained by The Daily News yesterday.

Best selling author Rick Bragg tells Lynch's story for her, often using her own words. Thankfully, she has no memory of the rape.

"Jessi lost three hours," Bragg wrote. "She lost them in the snapping bones, in the crash of the Humvee, in the torment her enemies inflicted on her after she was pulled from it."

The scars on Lynch's battered body and the medical records indicate she was anally raped, and "fill in the blanks of what Jessi lived through on the morning of March 23, 2003," Bragg wrote.

Maj. Michael S. Patton, the unit's operations officer, was trying to secure the area immediately after the shooting when his interpreter told him a man in the crowd had some information for him. Patton sent his interpreter back to tell the man he was going to pretend to arrest him, so that no one would suspect he was passing information.

Back at the base camp, the informant, a cigarette vendor in his mid-forties who has lived in the neighborhood all his life, told Patton who carried out the attack -- and Patton's troops quickly nabbed him.

The episode made Patton understand who held the key to the battle: Iraqis in the neighborhood. It also was the start of a beautiful relationship. To date, the cigarette vendor has delivered 35 Iraqi resistance fighters to the Americans. "The guy," said Patton, 37, a cigar-smoking Oklahoman, "has been a gold mine."

A week later, Col. Ralph O. Baker took command of the 2nd Brigade, which includes Patton's 4-27 regiment. Baker spent time as an instructor of doctrine at the British Military Academy at Sandhurst, an assignment that enabled him to observe British operations in Northern Ireland.

It was in Northern Ireland that he came to fully appreciate the value of reconnaissance patrols. British troops were taught to look for something as small as a few extra milk bottles on a porch step as a sign that Irish Republican Army operatives might have been meeting inside. In Baghdad, he quickly emphasized a similar approach.

Oh — one other caveat: Yes, yes, yes, I have been fully briefed on the fact that "the children" are our future, damnit. But, so what? That is a statement about the need to improve the quality of inputs, not a statement about the quality of outputs. I mean, by the same logic, spermatozoa is the future too, but I'll be damned if I care what it sounds like when you put a cable news microphone to the beaker.

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays."

And that is after Zell Miller had this to say about Howard Dean.

Dean knows as much about the South as a hog knows about Sunday.

Misjudging our resolve, on September 11th the terrorists pushed the envelope considerably further Ð and they were surprised by our response. Newt Gingrich, who I believe is of the most astute observers of national security issues, defined the post-September 11th transformation in five different ways, as follows:

1) Globalization applies to national security. In other words "if we are not there, they will be over here."

2) The issues are non-negotiable. These people hate us and they feel good if we die.

3) Weapons of mass destruction change everything. We are dealing with a terrifying capacity to kill. It forces us to change our strategy from containment to preemption. The kind of devastation and destruction that once resulted from years of battle now can be unleashed in hours.

4) Islamist extremists are our strategic competitors and Al Qaeda is but a symptom.

5) The nature of the attacks on us can change dramatically. Our very strengths can become our weaknesses. A stadium holding 100,000 people becomes a target and an airplane becomes a lethal weapon.

Terrorism has become the enemy's choice for engaging us. Unlike traditional wars where the targets are military, the terrorist seeks out civilians. What Americans and Israelis call collateral damage is the primary objective of the terrorist. And it is a fact that most of these terrorists, although not all, are Islamists...

Every terrorist has a grievance - whether it is the Chechens, Al Qaeda or Hamas. One cannot legitimize the terrorism of one group and reject the terrorism of another group. If you can target Israeli civilians then you can target Indian civilians and you can also target Spanish civilians.

There are three kinds of terrorists - state-sponsored, groups unrelated to states and individuals or small groups with grievances.

In state-sponsored terrorism we must go after the sponsor, whether it be Iraq, Iran or Syria. There need to be consequences for sponsoring those who would kill and main the innocent...

And we have to remember that a single individual with a vial of bacteria can create an act of terror. John Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, the Washington snipers, were not traditional terrorists. But their actions demonstrated how two people, lone wolves, could terrorize a city.

The free world has to battle terrorism. That is why America's action against Iraq was justified and important. It sent a message.

Similar messages have to be sent to places like Saudi Arabia, which still finances most terrorist groups throughout the world. They are the financiers of madrassas that teach the gospel of hate. As you know, there is a growing feeling in Washington that we have been apologizing for the Saudis for too long.

Republican Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico compared Washington to the fabled Emerald City in "The Wizard of Oz" with policymakers "hoping that Toto doesn't go over and pull back the curtain."

Wilson recently sent a letter to Rumsfeld signed by a bipartisan majority of the committee that urged him to bolster the active troop strength by two divisions.

Emphasis added.

Just days before U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq, officials claiming to speak for a frantic Iraqi regime made a last-ditch effort to avert the war, but U.S. officials rebuffed the overture, according to news reports.

An influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman indicating that Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal, ABC News and The New York Times reported Wednesday evening.

The chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and other Iraqi officials had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction and offered to let American troops and experts do an independent search, the Times said. The Iraqi officials also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who was being held in Baghdad.

Messages from Baghdad, first relayed by the businessman in February to an analyst in the office of Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy and planning, were part of an attempt by Iraqi officers to persuade the Bush administration to open talks through a clandestine channel, people involved in the discussion told the Times.

Tensions among the group were a little higher when they were flying in blackout conditions at night.

“After we knew the Chinook had gone down and we flew at night in a darkened helicopter, we knew this was a dangerous place and we’re at war,” said Democrat Ed Case of Hawaii.

Any one of the many thousands of mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children of deployed soldiers could have told you that.

I take this as another sign that too many of our politicians have never spent a day in uniform.

The Marine Corps, which played a central role in toppling Saddam Hussein last spring, will return to Iraq as part of a U.S. troop rotation next year, officials said Wednesday...

Also included in the next U.S. rotation will be thousands of newly mobilized National Guard and Reserve troops as well as active duty Army units such as the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, and the 1st Infantry Division in Germany, according to officials who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.

No National Guard combat brigades will be called on, beyond the three already mobilized from North Carolina, Arkansas and Washington state to prepare for deployment to Iraq next year. The extra Guard and Reserve troops to be mobilized will be combat support forces such as military police.

Instead of relying almost exclusively on the Army to provide reserve forces for support, the Pentagon intends to mobilize specialists from the reserve components of the Air Force and Navy, too.

This is going to totally ruin some Air Force and Navy Reservist day...it has to be the last thing in the world they were expecting.

The other mortars landed deeper in camp.

On this night, the Army struck back. Battery fire from an M109A6 Paladin headed off into the darkness in the direction of the mortar launches. Soldiers could hear the whistle of the friendly shells as the rounds flew overhead and crashed into the darkened countryside.

A few minutes later, two Kiowa helicopters flew toward the area. A few minutes after that, two M1A1 Abrams tanks rolled past the guard post.

The mortars had set off a hornet’s nest of activity, but within minutes, the scene was calm.

Flottmeyer looked at his watch.

“Well, that’s the first hour,” he said to Larson.

One in every five soldiers deployed to Iraq with the Pierre, S.D.-based bridging company — 36 of 173 — is related to someone else in the unit, by either blood or marriage...

Three of four Flottmeyer children are in Iraq. Their 21-year-old sister, Joanie, wasn’t able to join the Guard because of hearing loss.

“I don’t think [Mom] realized we could all be deployed,” Jesse Flottmeyer said.

There not only are brothers and sisters in the unit, but also cousins. There are uncles and nephews and nieces, five pairs of fathers and sons, and two sets of husbands and wives.

“I guess a lot of people kid me that my son outranks me,” said Sgt. David Trautman Sr., whose son is Staff Sgt. David Trautman Jr. Dad had a break in service for 13 years before his son talked him into rejoining the unit seven years ago.

As he sat under the blankets of his hospital bed, Nelson said he would rather be with his unit in Iraq.

“As soldiers, we all bonded together over the past seven months, so we’re like a family,” he said.

One member of that military family, he said, was killed in the Chinook crash, though he didn’t feel comfortable talking much about him.

“I had a friend. He didn’t make it,” he said.

November 5, 2003
Release Number: 03-11-01

FORMER IRAQI GENERALS DETAINED, WEAPONS CACHE DISCOVERED

Al FALLUJAH, Iraq – Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, captured two former Iraqi Army general officers in an early morning raid in Fallujah Nov. 4.

The two generals are suspected of being key financiers and organizers of anti-coalition fighters operating in and around the city of Fallujah.

Also, soldiers from 1-16 Infantry, attached to the 82nd Airborne Division, discovered a large weapons cache in a raid following the generals’ capture. The cache consisted of 225 rounds of 60mm mortar, 20 rocket-propelled grenades, and 100 rounds of .50 caliber machine-gun ammunition.


November 5, 2003
Release Number: 03-11-02

TASKFORCE IRONHORSE CONDUCTS RAIDS, NETS RESULTS

AL HADID, Iraq –In the afternoon of Nov. 4, Task Force Ironhorse soldiers conducted a raid at a location near Al Hadid, believed to be a safe house for people suspected of involvement in mortar attacks against forward operating base Warhorse. The residence was searched and an important weapons cache was located and confiscated. The cache included: 33 blocks of dangerous explosives, 98ft. of detonation cord, 20 blasting caps, and abundant volatile munitions used in improvised explosive devices.

Additionally, soldiers discovered two rifles, eight fragmentation grenades, a machine gun, one rocket propelled grenade launcher, 300 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, and three rounds of 14.5mm anti-aircraft ammunition.

No one was detained as a result of the raid but a terrain model of forward operating bases Warhorse and Scunion, found in the building, indicated that the raided location had been used for planning attacks against coalition forces.

Good work guys!

I fear that some of the Democratic presidential candidates are treading on very dangerous ground for the party and, more importantly, for the country.

I do not question their patriotism; I question their judgment. They are doing what politicians often do, playing to the loudest, most active and most emotional group of supporters, feeding off frustration while clawing to find some advantage. I've done it myself and lived to regret it. My concern is that, without meaning to, they are exacerbating the difficulties of a nation at war.

Some of the liberal media excuse these actions by calling them "populism." Populism, my butt. It's demagogy, pure and simple. They should stop this, or at least modify it into a more civil discourse.

Howard Dean, while not alone, is the worst offender, and it says a lot about the current Democratic base that he has emerged as front-runner for the nomination. Angry and red-faced, these doom-and-gloomers need to take some "calm-me-down" pills. They should realize their overheated rhetoric is dividing the country when they should be helping unite it.

Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie didn't stoop to this demagogy in 1940 when he ran against President Roosevelt during those dangerous times on the eve of World War II. And Neville Chamberlain didn't do it to Winston Churchill, who had replaced him as British prime minister. They understood there are some things more important than making political points when a nation is in peril.

Frankly, I cannot understand the candidates' shrill, manufactured opposition. We've freed a nation from a cruel and oppressive dictator. A free Iraq, most everyone agrees, can transform the Middle East.

Isn't that what presidents have wanted to do for many years? Give it time. Of course, it's going to be difficult. Of course, it's going to be costly. Regrettably, more of our American sons and daughters will die.

There will be times when it looks like it's not worth it. But in the long stretch of history, it will be worth it.

In an unprecedented move, CBS Tuesday canceled a four-hour movie on the life of Ronald Reagan that had angered conservative critics over its portrayal of the 40th president.

...while this was not?

Was Jesus married?

And was Mary Magdalene his wife?

Apparently, a lot of people will be upset if the answer to both these questions is yes.

As explained in tonight's "Jesus, Mary and Da Vinci" - a new ABC News prime-time special inspired by the best-selling novel, "The DaVinci Code" - proof that Jesus of Nazareth was a married man enjoying conjugal relations with his wife would upset the apple cart, so to speak, of all of Christianity since Jesus' divinity has been based for so long, at least in part, on the notion that he was celibate.

An Al Qaeda Web site is running a warning issued to Muslims to leave Washington D.C., New York City and Los Angeles because of implied imminent terrorist attacks, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Titled "A Warning to Muslims in America," the directive was issued by the previously unknown "Islamic Bayan Movement" and first ran on the Global Islamic Media Web site on Monday, according to MEMRI, which translated the communiqué...

"Our Muslim brothers in America, we ask you to immediately leave the following cities: Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles," reads the communiqué, which frequently quotes the Quran.

If the Bush administration doesn't change the tenor of the public debate on Iraq, its (rightful) efforts to drive a stake into the heart of tyranny and terror in the Middle East could be jeopardized.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, the American people must come to understand that: Stabilizing Iraq is actually all about destabilizing the Middle East. Only by reconstructing Iraq as an open, free, secular society, can we deconstruct the closed, dark, repressive place the Middle East became during the Cold War.

The tragedy of 9/11, and its continuing violent global aftermath, proves that the status quo in the Middle East is intrinsically disruptive of international peace and security. America's well-being and security - and that of our friends and allies - depend upon changing the region for the better.

m Haydar was a 25-year-old Iraqi woman whose husband displeased Saddam Hussein's government. After he fled the country in 2000, some members of the Fedayeen Saddam grabbed her from her home and brought her out on the street. There, in front of her children and mother-in-law, two men grabbed her arms while another pulled her head back and beheaded her. Baath Party officials watched the murder, put her head in a plastic bag and took away her children...

These are the people we are still fighting in Iraq. These are the people who blow up Red Cross headquarters and U.N. buildings and fight against democracy and freedom. They are the scum of the earth. And they are being joined in their lairs by the flotsam and jetsam of the terrorist world.

Their scumminess is our great advantage. People like this will never lead a popular insurgency. They have nothing positive to offer normal, decent people. They survive only by cruelty and the power of intimidation.

The only question is who is going to eliminate them...

Iraqification is a strategy for the long haul, but over the next six months, when progress must be made, this is our job.

And the main challenge now is to preserve our national morale.

It is time for people to quit hearing and seeing only what they want and start absorbing the reality of the situation.

President Bush has been telling the American people since the day of the 9/11 attacks that the war on terror would be neither quick nor easy.

Bush continued that message last May aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln when he said tough challenges remained ahead. But most people fixated on the end of major combat operations and interpreted that to mean the war was over -- even though that was not what the president said or meant...

Among those whose patience seems to be in short supply are other elected officials, particularly Democrats.

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said, "We can't survive daily losses of the magnitude we have experienced this week without dire consequences, both politically as well as in human terms."

Yes, we can survive such losses, if we remember this nation is in a war -- a war unlike most of those fought in the past. And it is a war in which the United States has had success, even if Saddam Hussein and conclusive evidence of weapons of mass destruction have not been found.

As LaHood pointed out, there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States for more than two years.

A Syrian official called in remarks published on Wednesday for the United States to withdraw from Iraq, saying the problem of terror attacks had arisen only since U.S.-led forces occupied the country...

“The problem is America, not Syria. America must be more objective, because when it entered Iraq there was no terrorism and now there is the problem of terrorism and of al-Qaida and the matter has changed from one of weapons of mass destruction and toppling a regime to a new one of terrorism,” Kanfani said.

“America must accept the reality that it is no longer in its interest to continue this way in Iraq. They must hand over power to other parties whose behavior is more acceptable to Iraqis and bring Iraq closer to regaining its sovereignty and holding free elections and then the problems will end,” she said.

Really? Free elections? And what would Syria know about such things?

Dominant aspect of political system pivotal role of military as real source and guarantor of power. Disproportionately significant role played by country's largest minority, Alawis, who held many key positions in armed forces, Baath Party, and government.

But there's a bigger point here ... and that is the general coverage of Iraq. I'm not one of those people who says there's too much bad news. I say, give us all the bad news you've got. When American soldiers are killed, put it on page one, lead the newscast with it, give us all the bad news you've got, then give us more bad news.

But then -- then -- give us the rest of the story. It's the only way we're going to know what's going on there. There's other stuff going on that's quite positive.

Now, journalists always say, "Well, we tend towards the negative. We don't tell you that the plane landed safely. We don't tell you that the First National Bank didn't get robbed." But you would have to be a moron not to know that most banks don't get robbed and most planes do land safely. How in the world are we supposed to know what's going on in Iraq unless they give us the whole story? That's called good journalism.

Smiles might be hard to come by for some military children around this time of year, especially with the holiday season approaching and those who have a parent or two serving in a combat zone.

But for the Boys and Girls Club of America and the national retailer Toys “R” Us, there’s no time like the present for, well, presents and smiles.

The third annual national campaign “A Time For Smiles” provides millions of dollars worth of toys to kids around the world who are members of Boys & Girls Clubs. Toys “R” Us has pledged a donation of $1 million dollars in toys to launch the campaign, which kicked off Monday with the announcement on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

More than 45,000 pounds of toys have been or are being shipped to U.S. military installations overseas so that 30,000 dependent children who are registered members of the Boys and Girls Club affiliates at overseas military bases can get a donated toy for the holiday season.

Some of the soldiers most critically wounded in a helicopter crash in Iraq are most concerned about what happened to the troops they were flying with, a Landstuhl Regional Medical Center doctor said Tuesday.

Although most of his patients are on ventilators to help them breathe, Air Force Maj. Allan Philp, an intensive care unit physician, said he had spoken to a few patients about the crash.

“There’s a remarkable disregard for self,” Philp said of the wounded soldiers. “Their initial questions are ‘How’s that guy that was sitting next to me?’ That’s what struck me and what touched me,” Philp said.

An Army officer from Kent was killed Saturday in Baghdad, the Department of Defense announced.

Second Lt. Benjamin J. Colgan died when he was responding to a rocket-propelled grenade attack. An improvised bomb killed him. Colgan was assigned to the Second Battalion, Third Field Artillery Regiment, First Armored Division in Giessen, Germany.

Family members in Kent said he was married. He and his wife had two small children and were expecting a third child later this year.

UPDATE: A friend of mine, whom I know only by way of the Internet and the telephone wrote to tell me Ben was a friend of his. According to Mike "he was a great guy--loved and respected by everyone around him."

The Colgans tied a yellow ribbon around the maple tree in their front yard and intended to take it down once their son Ben returned safely from Iraq.

But yesterday, Joe and Pat Colgan tied a black ribbon of mourning on the tree -- the same maple they planted 30 years ago to mark the birth of their fourth child.

Their son, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division, was killed in Baghdad on Saturday by a remotely triggered bomb, the military told his family...

Colgan fell in love with the service, his family said, and excelled, first as a medic, then as a member of the Special Forces, and later as a member of the Army's elite Delta Force.

The reason he excelled, his uncle Paul remembered, pointing to his head, is "because it's all up here. He always used to say, 'It doesn't matter what shoes you have.' "

Read it all here.

A charity fund-raiser for Seattle Hebrew Academy and two local arts groups, which brought former President Clinton to town, was a financial bust — though not for the 42nd president.

The September event at Marion McCaw Hall cost organizers $290,000 but brought in just $288,000, according to organizers — a shortfall of $2,000 sponsors blamed on sluggish ticket sales...

But Clinton's visit made no money for either the Seattle Center Academy or Foolproof Performing Arts.

The Sun cut loose with three severe flares in less than 24 hours through Monday morning, bringing to nine the number of major eruptions in less than two weeks.

Scientists have never witnessed a string of activity like this.

Shortly before dawn on Aug. 28, an M1A1 Abrams tank on routine patrol in Baghdad “was hit by something” that crippled the 69-ton behemoth.

Army officials still are puzzling over what that “something” was.

According to an unclassified Army report, the mystery projectile punched through the vehicle’s skirt and drilled a pencil-sized hole through the hull. The hole was so small that “my little finger will not go into it,” the report’s author noted.

The “something” continued into the crew compartment, where it passed through the gunner’s seatback, grazed the kidney area of the gunner’s flak jacket and finally came to rest after boring a hole 1½ to 2 inches deep in the hull on the far side of the tank.

As it passed through the interior, it hit enough critical components to knock the tank out of action. That made the tank one of only two Abrams disabled by enemy fire during the Iraq war and one of only a handful of “mobility kills” since they first rumbled onto the scene 20 years ago. The other Abrams knocked out this year in Iraq was hit by an RPG-7, a rocket-propelled grenade.

Experts believe whatever it is that knocked out the tank in August was not an RPG-7 but most likely something new — and that worries tank drivers.

The third phase, he said, is "acceptance."

I have not reached that third phase yet. Not even close. I'm still angry because of the petty partisanship on both sides of the aisle. Angry that one single senator representing less than one-fifth of 1 percent of the American people can stop any president — even during wartime — from making a crucial appointment to his own team.

Angry because of the thoughtless, needless waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money. Angry because soft money — big money — from special interests to both parties controls things in a way that is nothing short of bribery. Angry that this money pays for cynical consultants who sneeringly brag, "We do campaigns; we don't do government."

I'm angry at a process in which 59 votes out of 100 cannot pass a bill because 41 votes out of 100 can defeat it. Explain that to Joe Six Pack at the Kmart.

You will want to read the entire article.

US soldier Jessica Lynch, who was rescued by US special forces after being captured in Iraq, is to marry. Private Lynch, 20, will marry Army Sergeant Ruben Contreras next June, his mother told a US newspaper.

Rep. Green says he spoke to several Wisconsin troops. He said while they miss their families, they want to complete their task.

"I heard over and over again from our Wisconsin troops that if leaving, if wavering, means this war goes on and our kids are going to have to fight this war, they're not leaving."

Green says he spoke to one general who said more has been accomplished rebuilding Iraq in six months than in the Balkans in seven years.

"The crux of the problem is we're fighting a counter-insurgency and we should be fighting it much more ruthlessly," said Pletka, a former top Republican staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"We need to take the velvet gloves off, send soldiers out on pro-active sweeps against Baathists who are living freely throughout Iraq, strike fear in the heart of the rejectionists in a way we have not done so far."

But cracking down on the insurgents in a more forceful way risks antagonizing other Iraqis, said Dan Benjamin, an expert in the Middle East and terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"It's true that within the Sunni triangle, the primary issues remain security and not reconstruction, and this is sporadically true elsewhere in the country, with flare-ups from time to time. But this is an extraordinarily difficult kind of phenomenon to deal with -- primarily because we're trying to pacify the region without arousing even more antipathy. That is the classic dilemma of any type of counter-insurgency."

The 1,493-yard, par-29 course will challenge most golfers.

There’s an old Iraqi obstacle course on the third hole that golfers must hit over, and Hole 5 features a rock pit. There are even a few bomb craters.

The course has no water hazards and the fairways aren’t green — the course’s maintenance crew is waiting for a good rain — but there are plenty of sand traps.

“Oh yeah, the whole thing is a sand trap,” Bohonek said...

Still, everyone is invited to play and equipment is available, courtesy of donations.

“We’ve got about 200 to 300 clubs and balls with us,” Brown said. “We’ve got score cards.”

Residents of Prairie du Chien, Wisc., where the unit is based, donated the clubs and balls. Brown placed an advertisement in the town’s paper earlier this year, having planned to make a course wherever they ended up...

There are no club dues or greens fees at UXO 9, but there is a dress code.

“You can go out in PT gear but you still have to carry weapons,” Brown said. His M-4 carbine fits in a golf bag but the M-16 and M-249 don’t. Camouflage uniforms also are allowed.

The course is open every day and closes only during mortar attacks. “We’ve had to come off the course a couple of times when they were banging away,” Brown said.

In Baghdad, five strong explosions were heard in quick succession at about 9:10 p.m., and it appeared the blasts were coming from the western side of the Tigris River.

The U.S. military command had no information on the incident.

CPT Patti and her soldiers are on the eastern side of the river.

God help those on the western side.

Aziz has told interrogators that French and Russian intermediaries repeatedly assured Hussein during late 2002 and early this year that they would block a U.S.-led war through delays and vetoes at the U.N. Security Council.

Later, according to Aziz, Hussein concluded after private talks with French and Russian contacts that the United States would probably wage a long air war first, as it had done in previous conflicts. By hunkering down and putting up a stiff defense, he might buy enough time to win a cease-fire brokered by Paris and Moscow.

From a non-commissioned officer:

Hello, I'd like to start off by thanking you all for what you are doing for us. It means a lot to me and my soldiers to know that someone cares...We are in the town of Fallujah West of Baghdad. Right now it's the most active and dangerous part of the country. We are receiving casualties every day and mortar and rocket attacks every night. It gets tough at times...

We are stretched thin with personnel so we have people doing jobs they were not trained to do and sometimes it costs us dearly. We will not give up hope. We will keep trying. We will defend at any price. We are part of the best division on earth... the All American Division... America's Guard of Honor... The 82nd Airborne Division ! Never Forget Us !

As you read this one...imagine in your minds eye pictures you have seen of soldiers in WWII. Except for the geographic references, one could imagine this one was written over 50 years ago.

I'd like to say thanks for your support. That means a lot to me. I really appreciate it. People that I don't even know are taking care of me and giving me stuff that I really need. It gives me the strength to keep going and makes my duties a lot easier. It makes me feel proud of myself and my country. This is my first deployment. I was nervous when we were in a convoy from Kuwait up through Iraq but now I'm okay. Everything is fine. Now I'm just waiting to get back home and see my family, my wife...and my daughter... We would be very happy if you could keep writing to us. Thanks for your support.

And from a 19 year old:

It is truly astounding that so many people would support what we are doing over here in Iraq. For that I cannot begin to express my thanks. ..Things out here aren't too horribly bad. I guess overall we're comfortable. We work a lot and have to pull guard duty on a lot of different places. They are beginning to build a PX here where we are. Your package was great fun to open. Everyone in our section absolutely enjoyed the items you sent. We thank you graciously. I can't think of much else to tell you. I do think it's going to be wierd being a 19 year old combat vet. Thank you again. I appreciate it.

And finally, this one:

I want to say thank you for your support to us. It is very pleasant for me to know that we got people like you that are interested in helping us thru this hard time. Makes my job easier when I see that people recognise our duty. I'm a 23 year old male from Humacao Puerto Rico and I've been in the states for two years. You don't know how happy I was when I saw that package. I was happy for it but I was even happier when I saw that somebody that I didn't even know before was thinking of us. I'm not going to be able to pay you for this but the God that is up there... He will pay you even more. If you have time I will be waiting for your answer. Well one more time THANK YOU A LOT ! And one day I will like to say thank you in person. God Bless You !

Do you hear the message? To know we - total strangers but fellow Americans - support them raises their spirits and makes their burden easier.

Have you told a Soldier how much you care lately? They sure are never going to figure out how much America is behind them by reading the paper or watching the news.

Write today...and again tomorrow.

Once upon a time, the most successful Democratic leader of them all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, looked south and said, "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished."

Today our national Democratic leaders look south and say, "I see one-third of a nation and it can go to hell."...

So, four times — 1972, 1984, 1988 and 2000 — the Democratic candidate couldn't carry a single Southern state. Not one. Zero. Zilch. And two times, 1968 and 1980, only one Southern state favored the Democrat.

Either the Democratic Party is not a national party or the candidates were not national candidates. Take your pick.

But there is more to this sorry tale. In the mid-term elections of 2002, not a single national Democratic leader could come to the South to campaign without doing more harm than good.

Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe couldn't come. He was too liberal. Bill Clinton couldn't come. He was too liberal. The party's titular head, Al Gore of Tennessee, who two years earlier had put up a big fat zero in the region, couldn't come. Too liberal. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle couldn't come, nor House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. Too liberal.

Little has changed, except that Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California has taken the place of Gephardt, which makes it even worse when it comes to romancing the South.

If this is a national party, sushi is our national dish. If this is a national party, surfing has become our national pastime. The people leading our party and those asking to lead our country are like a bunch of naive fraternity boys who don't know what they don't know.

Read the whole thing here.

The U.S. economy posted third quarter growth of 7.2% in the third quarter, according to the Commerce Department, the highest growth rate since early 1984. Analysis had expected strong third quarter growth, but the size of the gain was larger than expected.

In what sounded like a warning, Mr. Burns told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Syria harbors "either the illusion that cosmetic steps will be enough to defuse our concerns" or "a misplaced belief...that U.S. engagement in Iraq and with the Israelis and the Palestinians will prevent us from pursuing a robust agenda with Syria."

Thus far, the administration has yet to explain whether a "robust agenda" might include military action against Syria's boy dictator. But, should Syria continue to refuse to seal its border, and American and innocent Iraqi casualties in the Sunni Triangle area, in particular, continue to rise, Washington's patience may finally run out.

Sgt. Ernest Bucklew, 33, was coming home from Iraq on an emergency leave to attend the funeral of his mother when his helicopter was shot from the sky.

In three days, Donald Bucklew, of Darlington Township, lost his wife and his son.

"His mother and dad prayed every night that he would come home safe," said Jack Smith, of Point Marion, Fayette County, Ernest Bucklew's uncle.

The family tragedy started Friday afternoon. Mary Ellen Bucklew, 57, was driving home from work at a warehouse when an aneurysm in one of the arteries leading to her heart burst. Her vehicle ran into the median of the road and she died.

The rescuers have piled the rucksacks and helmets of the men who were on board into neat rows, which stand in stark contrast to the smoldering, sprawling pile of metallic rubble. Air Force search-and-rescue teams are crawling over the wreckage with acetylene torches, cutting through metal, looking for anything human...

Capt. Hannam later tells me that a medevac had been requested but that on arrival it became clear there were only dead bodies. Part of the reason for the tension, Capt. Hannam explains, was not just my presence, but his refusal to remove two bodies from the scene.

"We only fly the living," he later tells me. "We can't have bodies on board, we might get a call and need the space. We can only help the living, and those guys didn't like it."

Iraq's soccer coach criticized the U.S.-led coalition for ignoring the needs of the national team and threatened to resign unless authorities help the squad prepare for the upcoming Asian championships.

"In a country without any working cinemas or theaters, where people are afraid to go out at night, the successes of our team are a matter of huge national pride," Bernd Stange said Sunday. "That's important for the return of normalcy. Doesn't the coalition, doesn't Paul Bremer understand this?"

Stange, from Germany, complained that Bremer, Iraq's chief U.S. administrator, had provided no support for the team and had not even called to congratulate the players after they qualified for the Asia Cup, the continent's most prestigious competition that will be played in China in June.

Some South Carolina soldiers are visiting Iraqi elementary classrooms to build good relations with the local community.

The soldiers of the Greenville-based 151st Signal Battalion provide the elementary school with supplies donated by their families and friends.

"We visit and interact with the children and teachers," said Lt. Col. Heather Meeds, commander of the 450-soldier battalion, which has two of its four companies near Baghdad.

Some of the soldiers and their chaplain have been invited to a teacher's home, Meeds said.

Before flying here, new recruits to the occupation staff get briefed by an American colonel in Kuwait City: "You are going to be helping to rebuild a nation. I can't think of anything more honorable than that," he tells them. "We won the war, and we're going to win the peace, regardless of anything you may see in the news media."...

And are they winning the peace? A short answer: More than you might think, less than you might have hoped. Daily life in much of the country is back to something like normal. In Shiite towns south of Baghdad, people bustle through crowded markets to buy dates and pomegranates with nary an American soldier in sight. Traffic in Baghdad is heavy, and used cars from Jordan and Kuwait are flowing into Iraq for resale. Representative councils are at work in neighborhoods, towns and cities, and at the national level Iraqi Cabinet ministers from every ethnic group are shaping their 2004 budgets. Street crime is down, and newly trained Iraqi police are increasingly visible...

Given the challenge, the skepticism back in Washington is understandable. But from here much of the Washington debate sounds oddly beside the point. Last week, for example, Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller, speaking with a kind of I-told-you-so weariness, responded to an attack on U.S. headquarters in Baghdad by saying America may be fighting the wrong war.

That may be true; years from now we may shake our heads at the hubris or naivete of that colonel in Kuwait. Yet it seems, at a minimum, awfully early for such a conclusion. From here one would wish that the debate back home would focus a bit more on how to make the venture succeed rather than on why it was a mistake and bound to fail.

For whether or not you believe this was the wrong war, it is clear that America is on the right side. Failure would delight not only the Saddam Hussein henchmen and al Qaeda terrorists battling American troops but also the ayatollahs of Iran, the wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, the secret police of Syria. And the losers would be many -- among them the people of Iraq, most of whom want nothing more than to be part of a peaceful, free and stable nation.

"One of the ways we're improving [our counterintelligence capabilities] quite dramatically is by the success we're having in recruiting and training and deploying Iraqi security forces," Rumsfeld said on ABC's "This Week."

"They speak the language. They live in the neighborhoods. And we have found that the intelligence information coming into our forces goes up significantly when we have joint patrols and joint operations with Iraqi forces."

Nervous Baghdad parents kept children home from school yesterday, but warnings of an insurgent "Day of Resistance" and a general strike otherwise had limited impact across Iraq...

Leaflets dropped in Baghdad's streets had called for a three-day general strike and declared yesterday a "Day of Resistance," sparking rumors of planned new terror bombings...

Despite these fears, many shops in this city of 5 million people opened yesterday as usual, although fewer Baghdadis ventured out in the morning. Traffic picked up as the day wore on, however, and as people realized no wave of bombings had materialized. Schools reported very low attendance.

In Iraq's second- and third-largest cities, Basra and Mosul, there were no signs of strikes.

A book drive spurred by Company A, 501st Signal Battalion, 101st Airborne Division led to the donation of 1,200 textbooks and novels to Mosul University, a school that had many books destroyed under the censorship of the former regime.

While at Mosul University on a project to restore a computer lab, Capt. James Riley, Co. A. commander, met with a professor, and they discussed the possibility of rebuilding the school's library. Riley then called his former college, Vermont's Norwich University, and spoke with the school's president, Richard Schneider.

In a matter of days, Schneider started a book drive which had citizens of Central Vermont flooding the mail system with books on science, history, philosophy, psychology, computer science and economics, as well as a few novels.

In a country full of targets, perhaps none widens the eyes and gladdens the hearts of the bad boys in Iraq like those 30-foot trailers rolling down the open road carrying 7,500 gallons of fuel.

For anyone with a weapon and trouble on his mind, the trucks are an inviting sight. They are traveling bull’s-eyes. Moving placards proclaiming “Insert projectile here.”...

The trucks have been shot at repeatedly and targeted by the improvised explosive devices that now have their own acronym — IEDs. But after nearly six months of driving the roads of Iraq, the unit based at LSA Anaconda, a logistics base north of Baghdad, has had no fatalities from the attacks and has lost only one of the 54 trailers it brought to Iraq.

In that time, the truckers have hauled 15.5 million gallons fuel across 930,000 miles of road...

“We move fast. We move 50 to 55 mph,” he said. “We ride in the center of the road. We have 100 to 150 meters of spacing between trucks.”

The speed does two things, he said.

First, it means the trucks are a harder target for rocket-propelled grenades or small arms fire. Second, it complicates the timing for the remote explosion of an IED.

“They have to be perfect when they hit the magic button,” Holben said...

There was no book detailing this. The ideas grew from experience and from a purposeful sharing of ideas by officers and enlisted personnel.

“Most of these were kind of ‘learn as you go,’ ” said Sgt. 1st Class William Phipps, a firefighter back in Ohio and the unit’s first sergeant here.

“Our doctrine is called common sense,” added Holben...

But here is the dirty little secret that would astonish the ambushers and terrorists who lick their chops when they see the trailers coming into their midst and envision a successful hit that will leave a crater the size of New Jersey on the highway.

The JP-8 fuel in the trucks is unlikely to explode, even with a direct hit.

“Technically, it could blow up,” said Phipps. “But the chances of that happening are not likely.”

He said the high grade of fuel in the trucks is less volatile than most fuel. In fact, bullets have penetrated the thin metal trailers and done nothing but cause extra work in the motor pool.

The CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed and burned at 9 a.m. Iraq time shortly after departing the Army's Camp Ridgeway, formerly Iraq's Al Taqaddum air base, 35 miles west of Baghdad. At least 20 others in the helicopter were injured...

A second Chinook helicopter flying with the first was not hit. Those on the stricken aircraft came from a variety of units, an Army spokesman said, and included a number of reservists and possibly some civilians associated with the U.S.-led coalition. The Army's 82nd Airborne Division has troops deployed throughout western Iraq, and Camp Ridgeway is one of its operating bases.

A spokesman at Ft. Carson, Colo., said the Chinooks were carrying soldiers from Ft. Carson, Colo.; Ft. Sill, Okla.; Ft. Campbell, Ky.; and Ft. Hood, Texas.

Congress will soon deliver to President Bush a compromise $87.5 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan bearing hundreds of millions more than he requested for U.S. troops who served in those operations...

Troops in combat zones would be entitled to higher rates of "imminent danger" pay and family separation pay, which is added to their regular paychecks. And extra funds were added for body armor, cleaning up unexploded ammunition and strengthening the armor of Humvees.

Well, that is good to know.

It took L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Baghdad, no more than a stroke of the pen Sept. 15 to accomplish what eluded the likes of publisher Steve Forbes, Reps. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), and Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) over the course of a decade and two presidential campaigns.

"The highest individual and corporate income tax rates for 2004 and subsequent years shall not exceed 15 percent," Bremer wrote in Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 37, "Tax Strategy for 2003," issued last month.

Voilà! Iraq has a flat tax, and the 15 percent rate is even lower than Forbes (17 percent) and Gramm (16 percent) favored for the United States. And, unless a future Iraqi government rescinds it, the flat tax will remain long after the Americans have left.

According to a new study, fans of the "Oprah Winfrey Show" have higher stress levels than those who are not fans.

According to the study, 5 percent of the country's adult population, or 9 million people, said they feel so much stress that they can no longer cope. Half of those said they were fans of the show.

"We're doing something worthwhile here," Sassaman said in an interview at the headquarters of his unit, the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, part of the 4th Infantry Division. "But it's clear that our enemies are going to keep attacking us until we kill and capture every one of them. That's going to take a while."

On a recent afternoon at Balad Youth Center, Sassaman found himself in the unlikely position of presiding over one of the first meetings of the Balad City Council. Seated at an elevated table, he looked like a soldier but acted more like a teacher, moving the meeting along, reminding the Iraqis of their responsibilities, nudging here, shepherding there.

"I want to take a moment to congratulate the mayor for the great job he's done," Sassaman said into the microphone, "and for all his efforts he has made for a secure and stable environment in Balad."

The mayor, Nabeel Darwash, stood up, and all the Iraqis clapped.

The City Council meeting that unfolded in Balad on Friday was a measure of the progress the Americans have made here and in other parts of the country where the environment is peaceful enough to allow American soldiers and their Iraqi allies to begin the quiet work of building a democracy.

And not only that: In Balad, the American military has been setting up police forces, repairing electrical lines and filling up hospitals with medicine.

For Sassaman, the key to the success inside the city has been simple: His soldiers do not get shot there. As a result, he has channeled the overwhelming majority of the reconstruction money at his disposal — more than $1 million — into Balad, and away from the outlying areas, where the war is.

I want one person to dare to write to this newspaper and say with a straight face and a clear conscience that the Iraqi people would be better off now if we had left Saddam Hussein in power. Just one.

I sense a pen somewhere hitting paper. Pause a moment. Forget that fewer than 5 percent of Iraqis have told pollsters -- in the tens of scientific surveys so far -- they want Saddam back, if you must. Think about this. Barely a decade ago, the marshes of southern Iraq were home to 400,000 hunters, fishermen and boaters, living as part of a delicate ecosystem so lush that it was long considered to be the location of the Garden of Eden. Their homes were built on floating islands made from reeds. They had inhabited this peaceful, self-sufficient world for five millennia.

But then Saddam seized control of their country. He damned the Marsh Arabs as "lawless gypsies" and set about "civilizing" them....

This time last year, I visited a Marsh Arab family crammed into a tiny straw hut in the stinking heat in the Iraqi desert. It was not their poverty or grief -- overwhelming though they were -- that changed my mind and made me resolve to support the military overthrow of this Stalinist tyranny. It was the fact that in this -- the tiny patch of sand and straw that remained to them -- they were forced to hang a vast, menacing portrait of the man who had done all this.

If British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush had listened to the opponents of the war, they would still be festering in that shack. Instead, the marshes are being flooded with water once again. After the liberation (not a word Marsh Arabs scoff at), they began to hack away at the dams that destroyed their lives and sympathetic officials have opened the massive al-Karkha dam to help them. Blair always said, "The greatest beneficiaries of the war will be the Iraqi people."...

Do you imagine that the people launching savage attacks on aid agencies in Baghdad care about the Marsh Arabs? Do you delude yourself that they care about the Iraqi people at all? Thugs have blown up the United Nations and Red Cross headquarters. What more will it take for good liberal people who opposed the war to realize that these are not democrats who want a decent Iraq? What kind of Iraq do you suppose these bombers want to build?...

You might have doubts about America being a friend of Iraqi democracy -- given their one-time backing for Saddam and myriad tyrants, all sane people should -- but you can be absolutely certain that the bombers -- attackers of the Red Cross -- are its resolute enemy. America helped the Kurds to build democracy in Northern Iraq; neither jihadists nor Baathists have ever built democracy anywhere. America offers some hope; the bombers, none.

The real danger confronting us in Iraq is not from free-lance bombers. They can murder aid workers, but they cannot defeat us. The risk is, instead, that opinion back home will cave in to the tiny minority -- mostly, it seems, non-Iraqis -- who are attacking American troops. Brits and Americans are beginning to assume -- in defiance of all the evidence from piles of opinion polls -- that the coalition is not wanted by the Iraqi people...

Yet Iraq has become a magnet for international jihadists who venture across the world, from Afghanistan to Chechnya to Palestine. The notion of an Arab country moving toward the depravity of democracy (as opposed to rule by the Word of God) horrifies them. They care nothing for hospitals or schools. I have interviewed jihadists in both London and the Occupied Territories, and they believe, like old-style Marxist revolutionaries, that it is a good thing if material conditions get far, far worse under the corrupt current system, because this will precipitate a revolution. With these people prepared to make conditions far worse for the Iraqi people, a massive amount of disruption can be achieved with minimal manpower -- a few thousand jihadists in a country of 23 million.

These attacks are calculated to undermine our will to carry out a proper transition to Iraqi self-rule, along the path that has already been traveled by the Kurds in the North. A hasty withdrawal would give Islamic theocrats or recidivist Baathists a far better chance of seizing power than free elections...

All decent people, including those who opposed the war, must now work to establish a consensus in Britain and the United States behind the path that Iraqis, in every single poll of their opinion, are begging us to take: stay for a few years to ensure a transition to democracy, resist the fascistic bombers attacking those who have come to help and gradually accord more and more power to the Governing Council in advance of elections.

A bomb will always get bigger headlines than a slowly refilling marsh or a burgeoning school but we must keep focusing on the big picture. Nobody wants the occupation to continue indefinitely. Iraqi democracy is getting closer every day. We must keep siding with the Iraqi people, not the bombers who want to drive away their doctors and peacekeepers.

U.S. intelligence officials now believe that some foreign Islamic fighters are cooperating with remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, surviving members of a Kurdish Islamic militant group, a new crop of foreign Islamic militants and a smattering of Iraqi nationalists and angry Shiite Muslims to mount terrorist attacks in Iraq.

In his Saturday radio address, parts of which reflected the intelligence analysts' latest assessment, President Bush acknowledged that the groups "have different long-term goals," but he said they "share a near-term strategy: to intimidate Iraqis from building a free government and to cause America and our allies to flee our responsibilities. … The terrorists grew to believe that if they hit America hard - as in Lebanon and Somalia - America would retreat and back down."

The intelligence officials, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because intelligence assessments are classified, said they have no evidence that the attacks are centrally directed. They said many of the attacks appear to be carried out independently by small groups using improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

But they said the groups have begun to lend what one official called "some significant support" to one another:

The land of the fertile crescent, the very cradle of civilization, the birthplace of mathematics and sciences - this legacy has been squandered by theocrats and thugs and illegtimate potentates to the extent that the only things exported by the Arab world lately is oil, opium, angry young men and terror.

Where is the Arab Lincoln, who will refuse to let their house divide against itself any longer? Where is the Arab Bismarck who can visualze a greater future than that of wasted opportuniity and resources?

Can the greatness of Arab culture be strictly and entirely in the past? What a sad thing to admit...but admit to it they do everytime they murder in the name of Allah and their bullshit jihads...everytime a so called "cleric" urges his congregation to rise up and kill...everytime they allow some murderous jackass...or 19 murderous jackasses to be the only face of Islam visible to the rest of the world.

The Arab militant had been in Iraq less than 48 hours before he drove an explosives-packed vehicle toward a police station in an attempted fifth suicide blast on Baghdad's bloodiest day since Saddam Hussein fell.

Mouwafak al-Rabii, a member of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council, said the young, bearded attacker was a Yemeni-born Syrian national.

His bid Monday to blow up the police station in a southeastern suburb of Baghdad was foiled when police shot him and then pulled him from his crashed vehicle.

Al-Rabii said the wounded man, who has since had a leg amputated, was among more than 300 foreign militants caught by U.S.-led forces and their Iraqi allies.

"Interrogations show that these foreign fighters were coming to Iraq to settle scores with the United States," he said.

Does it ever occur to these pinheads they are being used? I mean, did it cross his mind to say to the guy who gave him the explosive-laden truck - "unh unh...you want them blown up...you drive the bleedin' truck"

Did he consider that if he can waltz into Iraq and within 48 hours be behind the wheel of that truck...well, just perhaps there isn't a whole lotta folks signing up for that line of work right now? That just maybe a whole bunch of guys who got there sooner, and are a little bit smarter had already said no to this gig?

And oddly enough, I think there is good news in this...precisely that the supply of suicide terrorists would appear to be less than the demand. I doubt this idiot got the job because he had a superlative terrorist resume and finely honed suicide bomber skills (I mean, he screwed up a suicide bombing, for crying out loud...) It appears he got the job for being one of the relatively few who are stupid enough to buy into such a dead-end franchise.

The helicopter was part of a formation of two Chinooks carrying more than 50 passengers to the U.S. base at the former Saddam International Airport, renamed Baghdad International.

"Our initial report is that they were being transported to BIA for R&R flights," that is, rest and recreation leaves abroad, a U.S. command spokeswoman in Baghdad said.

UPDATE: This was costly.

Insurgents shot down a U.S. Chinook helicopter in central Iraq on Sunday as it carried troops headed for R&R, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 21 in the deadliest single strike against American troops since the start of war.

Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez dismissed the spiralling violence as "a strategically and operationally insignificant surge of attacks".

"There is stability and security across great parts of this country," Sanchez told a Baghdad news conference held amid tight security in the coalition's fortified compound.

He acknowledged there have been "obstacles" in the coalition's efforts to restore stability to the country and "many of these obstacles have been tragic."

"Undoubtedly, as we continue to fight this low intensity conflict, there will be more obstacles, more setbacks, more tragedies in the future."

He said those conducting the attacks were watching to see how the coalition reacts to the setbacks "in order to see if we are ready and willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary to live up to our commitments".

"There is absolutely no question that America and the coalition will persevere," he said, adding: "We are winning the global war against terrorism, and I remain absolutely convinced that we are also winning in this country."

He claimed the "enemy forces" have shifted their tactics from attacks on coalition troops to increased strikes "against domestic and international institutions they see as key to advancing the development of the country."

Another 1st AD soldier on emergency leave, who asked his name not be used, said he’d been waiting a full week for a seat to either Ramstein Air Base in south-central Germany, or Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt. “I don’t care which one. If I can just get to Germany, I’ll walk home,” he said.

Mayo is using the U.S. Postal Service to send the heaters, boots and other items. But after shipping 1,450 AC units, the Post Office stopped accepting the air conditioners, because they contain potentially hazardous substances that are not legal to ship.

In early September, the Army and the military’s Air Mobility Command helped by airlifting a shipment of 560 air conditioners to Iraq from Dover, Del.

But Mayo had to send a second shipment of 540 units through DHL-Danzis Air & Ocean, at a cost of $71,900, after the Army balked at using military transport.

The reason Mayo was given was that Pentagon lawyers found a policy prohibiting servicemembers from accepting gifts worth more than $20.

Fine, Mayo said she replied; she would send the air conditioners to units, rather than specific soldiers. That compromise should have solved the problem — only it didn’t, even after Mayo provided Army officials with a detailed spreadsheet listing specific units and the number of air conditioners requested.

Mayo still has a warehouse full of AC units waiting to go to Iraq, including five very large units, designed to cool entire hangars, destined for the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, Iraq.

But there’s still no word from the Pentagon on whether the units will get military shipment, either aboard ships or by air.

And now whe has her sights set on space heaters, boots and Christmas

And her website is www.operationac.com