70 people were killed in Iraq today.

The attacks - the latest in violence that has killed nearly 150 people in three days - were part of an increasingly brazen and coordinated militant campaign to bring the battle to Baghdad, sowing chaos in the center of authority for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his American allies. Insurgents appear to have only grown deadlier since Allawi's interim government took power in June, despite U.S. claims that Iraqi security forces are showing more resolve against guerrillas.

The mounting attacks aim to wreck the centerpiece of the U.S. plan for defeating the militants: building a strong Iraqi security force able to bring some calm before elections slated for January. Doing so is also a key prerequisite for any withdrawal of American troops.....

Crowds at the scene of the Baghdad explosion pumped their fists in the air and directed their anger against the United States and Allawi for failing to protect the station even though police recruiting points have repeatedly been attacked.

``Bush is a dog,'' they chanted.

First, Abu Ghraib, then Basra, now Mosul. The Guardian has the details of a third Iraq city in which detained Iraqi prisoners have filed reports of torture at the hands of U.S. servicepersons.

Two statements have been taken from Iraqis detained in Mosul and more are expected. In one, an Iraqi lawyer says he was hooded and stripped naked in a building known as the "disco".

Yasir Rubaii Saeed al-Qutaji describes how loud western music was played and cold water poured over his body; he said he was also threatened with sexual abuse. "For the next 15 hours they tried to break me down by taking me frequently inside and repeating the stripping, cold water and loud music sequence," he says. "Due to the very loud music," he adds, "they would talk to me via a loudspeaker that was placed next to my ears."

he beatings did not leave a mark on his body because his attackers wore special gloves, he says. Mr al-Qutaji says he was a founder member of the Islamic Organisation for Human Rights. He claims that other prisoners were treated even worse. "Some were burnt with fire, others [had] bandaged broken arms."

The second detainee's account is even worse. Haitham Saeed al-Mallah, an engineering graduate, recounts his own torture and then says:

Mr al-Mallah says the next day, he saw "a young man of 14 years of age bleeding from his anus and lying on the floor. "He was Kurdish and his name was Hama. I heard the soldiers talking to each other about this guy, they mentioned that the reason for this bleeding was inserting a metal object in his anus."

Yesterday was bloody in Iraq. A news reporter was among those killed--on camera, as he was reporting:

At least 37 people were killed in Baghdad alone. Many of them died when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq's most-feared terror organization. The dead from the helicopter strike included Arab television reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi, who screamed, ``I'm dying, I'm dying,'' as a cameraman recorded the chaotic scene. An Iraqi cameraman working for the Reuters news agency and an Iraqi freelance photographer for Getty Images were wounded.

Maimed and lifeless bodies of young men and boys lay in the street as the stricken U.S. vehicle was engulfed in flames and thick black smoke.

Today, the U.S. bombed a suspected al-Qaida hideout, killing 16.

Wouldn't it be something after all the deaths of our soldiers, now numbered at 1,000 and growing, if we didn't even win the war in Iraq? The rebels are reportedly gaining strength .

Armed groups and foreign terrorists have established new camps in central Iraq as government forces attack rebels in the north and south, officials say. The reports follow an admission by U.S. central command chief Gen. John Abizaid that there are more areas in Iraq under rebel control today than there were last year.

....They are mostly Baathist groups, but there are some foreign terrorists as well," Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress says, referring to the Baath Party that ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein. "They have sophisticated military organisation, are well trained, well armed, and have lots of money."

This is a sad day. The number of military persons killed in Iraq topped 1,000. That's 1,000 families who will never see their loved ones again, 1,000 lives cut mercilessly short for an unnecessary, ill-conceived war.

And two female Italian aid workers were kidnapped in Baghdad when 20 armed men stormed the aid office.

Iraqi officials report that Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, a top aide to Saddam, has been captured:

Iraqi and U.S. forces arrested a man believed to be the most wanted Saddam Hussein aide still on the run in a bloody raid in which 70 of his supporters were killed and 80 were captured, Iraqi officials said on Sunday.
Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, who was sixth on a U.S. list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration and had a $10 million price on his head, was captured in Tikrit, Saddam's former powerbase north of Baghdad, the Defense Ministry said.

Our ever-forthcoming military responds:

The U.S. military said Ibrahim was not in its custody, and it had no information on whether he was being held by Iraqis.

DNA testing is underway. How much of a current threat is Ibrahim? Apparently, not much.

Iraq's defense ministry said on Sunday that Ibrahim, Saddam's number two for decades and now seriously ill with leukemia, was captured in a Tikrit clinic not far from his home village al-Dour, where Saddam was caught in December.

Four navy commandos have been charged with abuse and lying in the beating death of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib. Those charged include three Navy seals and one sailor assigned to the Seal unit. They are the first Officers to be charged in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. More Seals are expected to be charged.

The incident also drew attention because the detainee was being questioned by the Central Intelligence Agency at Abu Ghraib, but was kept off the prison roster. Army officials also said this week that about two dozen soldiers were expected to face abuse-related charges in the deaths of two Afghan prisoners at a American-run detention center in Afghanistan in December 2002. In addition, an Army report released last week recommended disciplinary action against 41 members of the military police, military intelligence soldiers, civilian contractors and Army medics in connection with abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Here's a picture of Army SPC Sabrina Harmon (who is not one of the charged commandos) posing over his corpse:

Background on al-Jamadi's death is here.

Sound the trumpets! President Bush has finally admitted he made a mistake with Iraq. Of course, it's not with his decision to go to war, only in his post-war handling of Iraq, but still, it's like the earth moved. Meanwhile, here's the current death total:

According to the Pentagon, 969 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the invasion, 828 of them since April 30, 2003. An additional 6,690 service members have been wounded, most of them during the occupation.

Almost 1,000 dead and we're letting the Republicans dominate the discourse in this country with whether Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas or on Tet? Something is wrong with this picture.

TalkLeft is close to declaring itself a Swift Boat Vet-free zone. It's become a stupid distraction that's been beaten to death and is playing right into the hands of the Bushocrats. Time to end it. I'll be really glad to get to New York on Saturday where the anti-Bushites will be out in full force and take center stage. TalkLeft will spend the week focusing on how Bush's policies have hurt this country and why another four years will be a disaster.

An Islamic website is reporting that kidnapped Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni has been killed. Two French journalists are still missing.

Update: Chris Allbriton at Back to Iraq has a first hand account of police rounding up journalists in Najaf. It sounds terrifying. Chris, stay safe. [link via Jeanne at Body and Soul]

The ACLU issued a press release today accusing the Government of stonewalling in the lawsuit over access to torture documents at Abu Ghraib and other prisons:

Decrying the government’s failure to comply with a court order requiring it to respond to a request for information about prisoner mistreatment abroad, the American Civil Liberties Union today said it will raise the issue with the court in a hearing scheduled for September 9.

The government released only a handful of documents, only one of which was not already publicly available. The anemic document production comes less than a week after a federal judge in New York rebuked the government for its failure to comply with the ACLU’s request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

A Pentagon report focusing on military intelligence at Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison was released today, the day after yesterday's report on the Defense Department's role in the scandal. It finds:

The new report says that 27 military intelligence soldiers and civilian contractors "allegedly requested, encouraged, condoned or solicited" the abuse of Iraqi detainees, it said. But, it continued, "Most, though not all, of the violent or sexual abuses occurred separately from scheduled interrogations and did not focus on persons held for intelligence purposes."

This latest report is based on 170 interviews and a review of more than 9,000 documents by a staff of 28 investigators, analysts and legal advisors. But it is far from the last statement in the matter. Seven low-ranking members of the 372nd Military Police Company, which provided guards for the prison's cellblocks, already have been charged in connection with the abuses, and more legal proceedings against other soldiers and perhaps some civilian contractors are expected.

....it concluded that the major cause of the abuse at the prison outside Baghdad was human failings. "The primary causes are misconduct (ranging from inhumane to sadistic) by a small group of morally corrupt soldiers and civilians, a lack of discipline on the part of the leaders and soldiers . . . and a failure or lack of leadership" at several levels of command, states the report, which was scheduled to be released at 1:30 p.m. by the Army.

Update: The text of the Fay report is here.

In the wake of yesterday's release of a new Abu Graib report, John Kerry is calling for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. Where does the buck stop if not there?