Back At the Ranch

While you were listening to Patraeus and Crocker pump sunshine up your kilt...

BAGHDAD - Nine American soldiers died in Iraq on Monday — all but one killed in vehicle accidents in and around Baghdad, the military said.

The deadliest of the vehicle accidents, in western Baghdad, killed seven Multi-National Division — Baghdad soldiers and wounded 11, and left two detainees dead and a third injured. The cause of the accident was under investigation, the military said.

In a separate accident, east of Baghdad, an American soldier was killed and two injured when their vehicle flipped and caught fire. A ninth soldier died of injuries sustained Sunday while on patrol in the Kirkuk area of northern Iraq....

In the north, a suicide car bomber killed eight people and injured 20 others in an attack near an Iraqi army headquarters near Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, the local mayor Najim Abdullah said.

Also Monday, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed three civilians during a raid in Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City, police and residents said.