I ADMIT IT

This makes me nervous.

Mortar fire - especially as used here - can have a peculiarly random effectiveness. And it is that sort of randomness that is difficult to defend against.

It was mortar fire that wounded CPT Will...And that is entirely too close to home...

Insurgents battling U.S. forces in Iraq struck at the heart of the American occupation authority Tuesday night for the third time in a week, hitting a presidential palace compound with a series of rockets that sent the interim government's leaders running to basement shelters.

The attack on the heavily fortified "Green Zone," as the U.S. headquarters area in Baghdad is known, came hours after Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said insurgents had switched tactics in an effort to inflict more damage and casualties on U.S. troops while escaping unharmed. At a briefing for reporters, Sanchez said the fighters were increasingly using more "remote" tactics, such as firing mortars and rockets, rather than engaging in direct combat with U.S. forces.