Khamis al-Obeidi, one of the main defense lawyers for Saddam Hussein, was kidnapped from home by men in uniforms and killed. He is the third defense lawyer on the team to be killed in 8 months.

Khalil al-Dulaimi, Saddam's chief attorney, blamed the Interior Ministry.

Al-Dulaimi blamed the Interior Ministry, which Sunnis have alleged is infiltrated by so-called Shiite death squads, for the killing. "We strongly condemn this act and we condemn the killings done by the Interior Ministry forces against Iraqis," he said.

The Interior Ministry had no comment on the claim. A photo of al-Obeidi provided by police showed his face, head and shoulders drenched in blood

by TChris

An unconfirmed report from Iraq's Defense Ministry advises that the two U.S. soldiers who were reportedly captured by a group affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq have been found dead.

Update:

An Iraqi military official says bodies found showed signs of torture and of being killed in "a barbaric way.'' Mario Vasquez, Menchaca's uncle, said Army officials had told the family early this morning that the bodies of two uniformed soldiers had been found, both of them beheaded. He said the Army would be conducting DNA tests, but the family believes the men were Menchaca and Tucker.

The uncle of one of the fallen soldiers wants to know why the administration had no plan to win peace in Iraq:

Three U.S. soldiers, members of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division have been charged with murder in Iraq.

The three soldiers are accused of deliberately allowing three men detained during a raid on a former chemical factory to flee so they would have an excuse to shoot them, said a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

....The military did not disclose the identities of the slain detainees and the charge sheet said they were "of apparent Middle Eastern descent whose names are unknown."

The deaths occurred on May 9. More from the New York Times here.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq, has claimed on its website it is holding the two U.S. soldiers who have been missing since an attack Friday at a checkpoint in Yusufiya, about 30 miles south of Baghdad.

The statement said, "the strongest army in the world is turned around, ashamed of their failure [to find the soldiers] and we will give you more information on the incident in the following days."

The military has identified the missing soldiers as Pfc. Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon, and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas.

No video has been posted on the website and the group's claim has not been verified.

As President Bush flew off on his cheerleading trip to Iraq last week, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq sent a cable with some very distressing information about problems employees are facing. The Washington Post published a copy of June 16 cable.

Very bad news from Iraq. The AP reports that a farmer in Iraq witnessed the kidnapping of two U.S. soldiers missing from Yusufiyah, a mostly Sunni town about ten miles south of Baghdad.

The White House promised to do everything it could to find the soldiers and said it had a message for anybody who may have taken the two men: "Give them back."

Gunmen, meanwhile, kidnapped 10 bakery workers in Baghdad, and a mortar attack killed four people in the capital. Police also found 17 bodies around the city, including four women and a teenager handcuffed and shot in the head - apparently the latest victims of sectarian death squads.

It has been more than two years since a U.S. soldier has been kidnapped in Iraq.

Will people listen now that it is the Pentagon, not the ACLU or Human Rights First that is confirming American soldiers in Iraq abused detainees?

United States Special Operations troops employed a set of harsh, unauthorized interrogation techniques against detainees in Iraq during a four-month period in early 2004, long after approval for their use was rescinded, according to a Pentagon inquiry released Friday.

The abuse by special-ops forces detailed in the report continued after the allegations at Abu Ghraib came to light. As for the particular abusive techniques used,

The House of Representatives copped out again.

In a vote charged with election-year politics, the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a symbolic resolution that wrapped the Iraq conflict into the war on terrorism and rejected a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal.

The war on terror is not the war in Iraq. 2,500 American troops have died. Instead of instilling the fear of terrorism in the heart of every American, it's time to instill grief at the loss of life and the failure of our misguided U.S. policy in Iraq.

Here's the roll call vote. Set a deadline and bring the troops home.

by TChris

By sneaking in and out of Iraq, the president avoided adding himself to this tragic statistic:

The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said on Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that finds U.S.-led forces locked in a struggle with a resilient Sunni Arab insurgency. ...

In Washington, the Pentagon also said 18,490 U.S. troops had been wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a U.S.-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed.

Update: Here's the compassionate response from the White House:

Reacting to the new milestone on combat deaths, White House press secretary Tony Snow said, ''It's a number.''

Action Alert: Time to contact your senators. From Sen. John Kerry, who today introduced S. 2766 calling for troop withdrawal from Iraq by the end of the year:

In the next 24 hours, it is likely that the Senate will vote on my amendment which calls for the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year. For months, you and I have been pressing for this step. We've made it clear that we needed to set deadlines in Iraq -- and with the formation of an Iraqi unity government and the killing of Al-Zarqawi, this is a moment of truth in Iraq.

Now a critical vote is at hand. Our brave soldiers have done their work. It's time to put the future of Iraq in the hands of the Iraqi people.

Urge your Senators today to support withdrawal of combat troops by the end of 2006.

You can read excerpts from Kerry's Amendment to S. 2766 here.

by TChris

Some judges are disinclined by nature to credit the testimony of a defense witness, but this is beyond belief:

The chief judge in Saddam Hussein's trial said Monday four defense witnesses have been jailed on suspicion of perjury, drawing accusations from defense lawyers that the court was trying to intimidate witnesses.

Duh, yeah. Jail is an effective weapon of intimidation. So is thuggery.

The defense lawyers said Iraqi soldiers beat several of the witnesses during their arrest May 31.

The insurgency rages:

Gunmen in Iraq dragged 24 people, mostly teenage students, from vehicles and shot them dead, police said, as violence raged in the country on Sunday. Police said gunmen manning a makeshift checkpoint near Udhaim stopped cars approaching the small town 120 km (80 miles) north of Baghdad and killed passengers.

The victims included youths of around 15-16 years who were on their way to the bigger regional town of Baquba to write end of term exams, but also elderly men, they said.