Why isn't the mainstream media all over this? Editor and Publisher has the details on the increase of troop suicides in Iraq.

Twenty-two U.S. soldiers in Iraq took their lives in 2005, a rate of 19.9 per 100,000 soldiers, just over the rate in 2003 (the year of the U.S. invasion). In 2004, the rate had slid to 10.5 per 100,000, which the military said was due to efforts at prevention.

....A survey of the morale and mental health of U.S. soldiers in Iraq in late 2005 found 13.6 percent of the soldiers reporting symptoms of acute stress and another 16.5 percent describing a combination of depression, anxiety and acute stress. These numbers, about 30% total, were also up from 2004.

President Bush seems determined to send more troops to Iraq. He's even warning us to expect more losses.

Deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq now have reached 2,950. When will this man stop? Or a better question, who can finally stop him?

Dem Senate leader Harry Reid on Bush and Iraq:

It's been two weeks since the Iraq Study Group released its plan to change the course and bring our troops home. Since then, the President has been on a fact finding tour of his own administration -- apparently ignoring the facts presented by those in the military who know best. The President needs to put forth a plan as soon as possible, one that reflects the reality on the ground in Iraq and that withdraws our troops from the middle of this deadly civil war.

In an interview with the Washington Post, President Bush admits for the first time we are not winning the war in Iraq.

So, is he ready to retreat? Of course not. He wants to add more troops to the failed extravaganza.

In another turnaround, Bush said he has ordered Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to develop a plan to increase the troop strength of the Army and Marine Corps, heeding warnings from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill that multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching the armed forces toward the breaking point. "

He seems to be willing to consider every option but the right one: Bring the troops home.

The New York Times published an article Monday on the broken military policing system in Iraq. Despite more than 20 reported cases of abuse, not one contractor has been indicted.

Today the Times has a damning editorial on the the broken system, Only the Jailers Are Safe.

Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago, was a whistle-blower who prompted the raid by tipping off the F.B.I. to suspicious activity at the company where he worked, including possible weapons trafficking. He was arrested and held for 97 days — shackled and blindfolded, prevented from sleeping by blaring music and round-the-clock lights. In other words, he was subjected to the same mistreatment that thousands of non-Americans have been subjected to since the 2003 invasion.

Even after the military learned who Mr. Vance was, they continued to hold him in these abusive conditions for weeks more. He was not allowed to defend himself at the Potemkin hearing held to justify his detention. And that was special treatment. As an American citizen, he was at least allowed to attend his hearing. An Iraqi, or an Afghani, or any other foreigner, would have been barred from the room.

Great reading -- Eric Boehlert on the warbloggers' obsession with the Associated Press.

Something doesn't add up here, and I assume it's something warbloggers don't want to address, as they cling to their anti-press fantasy to explain the Iraq debacle. Namely, if insurgents view journalists as their allies -- weapons in their sophisticated propaganda war against the United States -- then why are insurgents killing journalists at an alarming rate? The entire premise of the warblogger theory makes no sense.

With no facts to back up their allegations, warbloggers instead lean heavily on name-calling in their never-ending attempt to libel and smear journalists.

As Boehlert notes, pretty soon the warbloggers will claim it's the media's fault we lost the war in Iraq.

Ah, the new Iraqi democracy at work.

Thirteen men convicted of murder, kidnapping and other crimes were hanged in a Baghdad jail on Tuesday, lining up shortly before their execution in hoods and green jumpsuits, their hands bound behind their backs.

The government executed the 13 men after an appeals court and the presidency approved the verdict, said Busho Ibrahim, undersecretary of the Justice Ministry.

In other Iraqi death news:

Police said they found 53 bodies around Baghdad on Tuesday, apparent victims of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites that has swept the capital this year. Many of the bodies showed signs of torture.

From the Sunday Times Online (UK): President Bush is considering a "double down" strategy in Iraq.

Having ruled out a “graceful exit”, Bush is tempted by the one option that presents the slightest chance of success: a sustained surge of up to 40,000 US forces into Baghdad and the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province.

He believes a sharp boost in troop numbers could salvage his reputation as a resolute war leader while presenting a satisfying break with the “cut and walk” proposal to reduce combat troops by early 2008 that came from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, his father’s secretary of state. This independent report is already gathering dust.

What a travesty. Our sinking leader cares more about salvaging his legacy than the lives of American troops.

Crooks and Liars has the video of Matt Damon's comments on Hardball...

Damon: I don't think that it's fair as I said before, that it seems like we have a fighting class in our country. That's comprised of people who have to go for either financial reasons or , I don;t think that that is fair. And if you're gonna send people to war, ahh, if, if we all get together and decide we need to go to war then that needs to be shared by everybody. You know and if the President has daughters who are of age then maybe they should go too…

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got a big Pentagon send-off today.

Combative to the last, Rumsfeld took a slap at advocates of withdrawing U.S. troops from the war, now in its fourth year with more than 2,900 Americans dead.

"It may well be comforting to some to consider graceful exits from the agonies and, indeed, the ugliness of combat," Rumsfeld said, choking up slightly as he capped a roster of speakers at his pomp-filled goodbye ceremony. "But the enemy thinks differently."

Memo to Mr. Rumsfeld: Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Marc Cooper of The Nation reports that for the first time since 1969, more than 1,000 soldiers are petitioning the Government to withdraw from war. Then it was Vietnam, this time it's Iraq.

"What Should Dems Do About Iraq?" is a question that the Media LOVES to ask. I like Charlie Rangel's retort:

“I never understand that question,” answered Charlie Rangel, the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “You have a President that’s in deep shit. He got us into the war, and all the reasons he gave have been proven invalid, and the whole electorate was so pissed off that they got rid of anyone they could have, and then they ask, ‘What is the Democrats’ solution?’”

but what about the question? And more importantly, what CAN a Democratic Congress do? Marty Lederman says:

How about Congress "getting him the message," Senator Reid, by actually requiring him to act? I fully realize that deciding which course of action we should take in Iraq, and when, are extremely difficult questions. It may be that coming to a consensus on particular statutory langauge would be very difficult under the circumstances. And there may not be a consensus, even among congressional Democrats, about many particulars of the ISG Report. But to the extent the Democrats can agree amongst themselves on at least some of the ISG recommendations, and/or on other proposals, they ought to put those directives in a bill, and have both Houses of Congress pass it.

But would that, assuming it could become law over a Presidential veto, be a de facto UNdeclaration of war? Could Congress tell the President that he must withdraw from Iraq? What this leads to is really the most basic argument - the power of the purse, argued here by Dennis Kucinich: