Tragically Wrong

Up really early this morning. Already done the walk, showered and dressed and it is only 630a here is the hill country of Texas.

The latest reports show that I missed the mark by thousands when I estimated the number of civilians killed in Sunni versus Shiite violence in Iraq. My guess of 500 was a little low...turns out it is more like 6000 in May and June.
How can anyone in the administration claim with a straight face that Iraq is moving in the right direction? This is so insane and tragic that I am almost speechless. There is no way you can spin this into "good news".

"While welcoming recent positive steps by the government to promote national reconciliation, the report raises alarm at the growing number of casualties among the civilian population killed or wounded during indiscriminate or targeted attacks by terrorists or insurgents," the U.N. said in a note accompanying the report.

In the last two days alone, more than 120 people were killed in violence in Iraq. In the worst attacks, fifty-three perished in a suicide bombing Tuesday in Kufa, and 50 were slain Monday in a market in Mahmoudiya.

According to the report, 2,669 civilians were killed in May and 3,149 were killed in June. Those numbers combined two counts: from the Ministry of Health, which records deaths reported by hospitals; and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, which tallies the unidentified bodies it receives.

The report charts a month-by-month increase in the number of civilians killed, from 710 in January to 1,129 in April. In the first six months of the year, it said 14,338 people had been killed.

Someone explain to me how this is good news. If this is "almost civil war" I don't want to see the real thing.