Meanwhile, Back at the War . . .

A Capitol Hill sex scandal and slaughter at an Amish school in rural Pennsylvania have pushed the war in Iraq off of many front pages, but the Mess in Mesopotamia has not gone away.

Things were relatively buttoned down in Baghdad over the weekend because of a round-the-clock curfew that choked the life out of the Iraqi capital, but the carnage picked back up again when the curfew was lifted with the usual car and roadside bombings. Eight U.S. soldiers were killed in and around the city on Monday alone, bringing to at least 2,727 American deaths since the war began.

But the big news is that Shiite and Sunni lawmakers have endorsed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's new plan for stopping sectarian killings. This apparently supercedes his old reconciliation plan, which was announced in May to great fanfare but died aborning.

Under the new plan, disputes would be resolved on a neighborhood by neighborhood level by giving every party a voice in how security forces operate.

Local committees made up of political, religious and tribal leaders and security officials will be formed in each Baghdad district. A central committee, also made up of these parties, will coordinate with the armed forces.

Color me cynical, or maybe just plain old realistic, but it seem unlikely that the orgy of violence can be curtailed by committee.

More here and here.

PROBLEMS AT TERRORISM CENTRAL

The terrorists are having problems, too. A document found in the safe house of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after he was taken out by a U.S. airstrike in June includes a dressing down of the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq that apparently originated with Osama bin Laden.

John, over at Powerline, which has managed to find good news amid all the bad new in the war, analyses the document thusly:

"You have to plow through a lot of palaver to get to the substance of the letter. What I think is most interesting is the picture that it paints of al Qaeda's prospects, especially in light of the recently-leaked fragments of the National Intelligence Estimate purportedly saying that the Iraq war has been a recruiting bonanza for al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda's numbers and support are ever-increasing. Al Qaeda itself seems to see its position quite differently. The letter says:

'The path is long and difficult, and the enemy isn’t easy, for he is great and numerous and he can take quite a bit of punishment as well. . . . Know that we, like all the mujahidin, are still weak. We are in the stage of weakness and a state of paucity. We have not yet reached a level of stability. We have no alternative but to not squander any element of the foundations of strength, or any helper or supporter.'

"The main theme of this letter, as with prior communications between the home office and Zarqawi, is to express concern about the wanton killing of Muslims, especially Sunnis, by Zarqawi and his confederates in Iraq. The home office says that such mass murders are counterproductive."

(Photograph by Samir Mizban/The Associated Press)