Sky News reports that two U.S. soldiers have been captured by Islamic forces:

The Pentagon is looking into claims that two US troops - one a woman - have been captured by Islamic forces in Iraq. A Lebanese TV station reported that the group, calling itself Fukat al-Madina al-Munawara, or Medina Faction, had captured the pair during a shootout. LBCI showed what it said was photocopies of the soldiers' military identity cards.

Developing....link via Atrios.

Update: The Pentagon says the male soldier has been accounted for and the report is untrue. No news yet on the female soldier.

Say hello to Riverbend, a 24 year old female, Iraqi blogger who has the new blog in Baghdad town, Baghdad Burning. We like her, she's got some attitude. [link via Buzzflash]

Wonder who's profiting from the War in Iraq? Here's a sourced list--with detailed explanations.

Daily Kos reports Chemical Ali has been captured.... again ....seems the Brits claimed they discovered his body a while back in Basra. Here's the news article.

Warblogging has more.

Who knew? George Washington Law Professor Jonathan Turley explains:

...The Pentagon is hard at work participating in a number of movies that will deliver its message on the legitimacy of the war and its own conduct in Iraq.

Examples: Planned movies on Private Jessica Lynch.

Most Americans are unaware that the U.S. military routinely reviews scripts that might require Defense Department cooperation and that the Pentagon compels changes for television and movies to convey the government's message.

Apparently, this is not a new phenomenon.

Although rarely publicly acknowledged, major films have been rewritten to remove negative but historically accurate facts to present a more positive military image. This work is done by a team of military reviewers "embedded" in Hollywood. Most recently, the military quietly worked on a script for the television program "JAG" to present its controversial military tribunals as something of an ACLU lawyer's dream.

Why does Hollywood allow this?

Though the Constitution generally bars the government from preventing or punishing free speech, it is less clear about the degree to which the government may assist speech that it favors. To that end, the military uses access to military units, bases and even stock military footage and open areas such as the Presidio to force prepublication review and script changes. This access is vital for many films on military subjects, so producers yield to the demands

Turley calls upon Congress for the fix:

Reuters says an unnamed U.S. official speculates the militant group Ansar al-Islam is behind the U.N. headquarters bombing at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad. The group previously has been named as a suspect in the Jordanian embassy bombing. The death toll is currently at 17, according to CNN. Lots of pictures available here as well.

Reuters reports that Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Brazilian who heads the U.N. mission in Iraq, has been killed in the attack. He was alive when first taken out.

A Palestinian Reuters cameraman has been shot dead in Iraq while filming a prison. Reports are that he was killed by U.S. soldiers.

A Reuters staffer told The Associated Press in Baghdad that Dana, a Palestinian, appeared to have been shot by U.S. soldiers as he was videotaping outside the Abu Ghraib prison after a mortar attack there Sunday, in which six prisoners were killed and about 60 others were wounded.

The staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the videotape in Dana's camera showed two U.S. tanks coming toward him, two shots, apparently from the tanks, rang out and Dana fell to the ground. He was taken away by a U.S. helicopter for treatment.

Don't miss Take Back the Media's flash animation "Army of One". They are trying to get it on TV. That takes money, so go over and watch and then donate. Great soundtrack too. Spread the word.

Don't miss the Friday edition of the Guardian and the article Punishment Without Trial:

Hundreds of Iraqis civilians are being held in makeshift jails run by US troops - many without being charged or even questioned. And in these prisons are children whose parents have no way of locating them. Jonathan Steele reveals the grim reality of coalition justice in Baghdad.

According to Steele, the problems generate from conditions such as these:

...arrests followed by incompetent interrogation, or none at all; the lack of an efficient trial-or-release system; shocking prison conditions; constant buck-passing; and sloppy paperwork by the coalition authorities. The result is that in almost every case families take weeks or months to find out where their loved ones are being detained.

Steele provides plenty of examples of kids taken and held for unduly long periods of time. Here's one:

Thanks to Atrios, we found this article in The Guardian explaining the numbers of soldiers dead and wounded in Iraq:

US military casualties from the occupation of Iraq have been more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely unreported in the media.

Since May 1, when President George Bush declared the end of major combat operations, 52 American soldiers have been killed by hostile fire, according to Pentagon figures quoted in almost all the war coverage. But the total number of US deaths from all causes is much higher: 112.

The other unreported cost of the war for the US is the number of American wounded, 827 since Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

Bush's support for continued presence in Iraq is declining in the face of the increasing casualties. 25% of Americans want the troops home now. An additional 33% want the troops home if casualties continue to rise.

In fact, the total death toll this time is 248 - including accidents and suicides - and as the number of non-combat deaths and serious injuries becomes more widely known, the erosion of public confidence is likely to continue, posing a threat to Mr Bush's prospects of re-election, which at the beginning of May had seemed a foregone conclusion.

Military observers say it is unusual, even in a "low-intensity" guerrilla war such as the situation seen in Iraq, for non-combat deaths to outnumber combat casualties.

The U.S. apparently isn't doing much to protect its Iraqi informers these days. Read this chilling story. Consider that the Administration has just agreed to pay $30 million in reward money to the man who informed on Saddam's two sons. Will he be alive long enough to benefit from it? We wonder how the POW's feel knowing that not only did Bush successfully oppose their receiving any funds at all for their ordeal in Iraq, but the very next day, he gives $30 mil to one Iraqi. There's a moral in here somewhere, we just haven't figured it out yet.

Bump and Update: The POW's lost. Bush won. Here's the opinion.

The Secretary's position that the POWs are unable to recover any portion of their judgment as requested, despite their sacrifice in the service of their country, seems extreme. Yet, he is correct that the Congress and the President have withdrawn TRIA as an available mechanism for the plaintiffs to use to
satisfy their judgment. Prior to the date the plaintiffs in this case obtained their judgment against Iraq and their corresponding ability to attach assets under TRIA, Congress and the President made TRIA inapplicable to Iraq. As a result, defendant is entitled to summary judgment on plaintiffs' TRIA claim.

*************
(from our earlier post, 7/29/03)

The POW's from Gulf War I were awarded $1 billion dollars for their ordeal by a federal judge. Congress passed laws specifically allowing payment of such claims to be made from funds or assets the U.S. has seized from the responsible nation. The U.S. seized $1.9 billion from Iraq. Now the Bush Administration is in court fighting to not have to pay the money to the POWs. It wants to use the money to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq.

Congress' purpose in passing the series of laws that allows such recovery was not just to recompense the POW victims. It was also to send a deterrent message to other nations that they better not violate the Geneva Convention and laws against torture or they will pay dearly for it.

The Adminstration's argument is that Iraq is no longer a terrorist nation since May when it was liberated. They say Saddam and those in power when the injuries to the POWs were caused are no longer in power and the funds don't belong to them now. They also say that an Executive Order passed by Bush in March seized the frozen funds, and that the Patriot Act gives the Government the right to the funds over the POWs.

POW lawyer Stephen Fennell disagrees, and says:

....changing conditions in Iraq should be of no consequence. Under the Geneva Convention, he said, "these types of liabilities run with the states, not the governments."

We hope there is considerable political fallout to Bush from this. We think the POW's should get the money as Congress intended and the Judge decreed.

“It really is unthinkable that in the end that the reconstruction of Iraq should be done on the backs of the POWs who were brutally tortured (there),” said Stephen Fennell, attorney for the 17 former prisoners of war and their families who are trying to recover the nearly $1 billion in damages they were awarded earlier this month. “We need to deter the continued torture of American POWs,” he said.

The judge has issued a restraining order against the Government from using the funds for other purposes while he decides the issue. A ruling was not issued at today's hearing.

New York Times coverage is here, and here's more from MSNBC.