Iraq: Three Days in Paradise

The stinging rebuke to The Decider's war policy, combined with the news that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has decided to spend more time with his family, has shifted attention from Iraq itself.

Not to worry, the three days following the election have been typically chaotic:

* Six people were killed and 18 wounded when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-rigged car into an army checkpoint in Tal Afar.

* Senior Iraqi government officials say it may be too late for the political leadership to curb the Mahdi Army, one of the biggest of the Shiite militias, because it has fragmented and spun out of the control.


* A U.S. soldier was killed and one wounded while on patrol in Haditha.

* A bullet-riddled body of woman bearing signs of torture was pulled from the Tigris river in Mosul.

* Gunmen killed a former Baath Party member in Diwaniya.

* A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol, wounding two soldiers in Kirkuk.

* An unidentified Marine was killed in combat in Al Anbar Province.

* Two U.S. Army military policemen were killed and one wounded after their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.

* Army Sergeant Lucas T. White, 28, of Moses Lake, Washington, died from injuries suffered earlier in combat in Baghdad.

* The Iraqi health minister estimated there have been at least 150,000 civilians deaths in the war, about three times previously accepted estimates.

* Simultaneous car bombings in markets in predominantly Shiite areas of Baghdad killed 16.

* Gunmen killed a police lieutenant and an a police lieutenant colonel in separate incidents in central Baghdad, and two policemen were killed while dismantling roadside bomb.

* The bodies of five abducted laborers were found in Baghdad.

* Eight people killed in different neighborhoods of Baquba.

* A rocket attack killed four people in Tal Afar.

* A roadside bomb wounded four people near a gas station in central Baghdad.

* Four bodies were found bound and gagged in Latifiya.

* Gunmen killed six people, including a police officer, in Mosul.

* A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed four people, including a policeman, and wounded eight others, including a policeman, in Tal Afar.

* Marine Lance Corporal Ryan T. McCaughn, 19, of Manchester, New Hampshire, died in combat in Al Anbar Province. A total of 11 U.S. troops have died in the restive province in November.

* A car bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed a soldier and wounded four civilians in northeastern Baghdad.

* A car bomb in central Baghdad killed six people and wounded 28.

* Fallujah, the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting of the war, was declared returned to insurgent hands.

* U.S. and Iraqi security forces came under fire when insurgents attacked a patrol outside of Dugmat, near Kirkuk, and fled to a compound where the fighting continued.

* Twenty-nine bodies with gunshot wounds and signs of torture were found in Baghdad.

* Army Chief Warrant Officers Miles P. Henderson, 24, of Amarillo, Texas, and John R. Priestner, 42, of Pennsylvania, died of injuries suffered when their AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed.

* Beset by rampant sectarian violence, Iraq's parliament voted to extend the country's state of emergency for 30 more days.

* Marine Corporals Kyle W. Powell, 21, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Jose A. Galvan, 22, of San Antonio, Texas, were killed in combat in Al Anbar Province.

* Gunmen killed a police lieutenant colonel in front of his house in Samawa.

* Six bodies with gunshot wounds were found in different parts of Mosul.

* Five Iraqis were killed in clashes between two Sunni tribes in the village of Dhida near Muqdadiyah.

* Two police lieutenants were killed in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, during demonstrations against the former dictator's death sentence.

* A car bomb killed three and wounded three in Baghdad's Al-Amil neighborhood, and a policeman was killed in a suicide car bombing at a nearby checkpoint.

* A mortar attack on Jumhuriyah Street in central Baghdad killed one person and wounded eight.

* Two people were killed and eight wounded in a mortar attack on the Kadhimiyah neighborhood of Baghdad.

* One person was killed when a car bomb exploded near the Nida mosque in Adhamiyah.

* Three people were killed and five wounded in a mortar attack near the Health Ministry in Baghdad.

* Six people were killed and 26 wounded in a car bomb attack in the center of a market in Mahmudiyah.

By my count, that's eight dead Americans and 116 dead Iraqis in 72 hours.

Source: Iraq Coalition Casualty Count

(Photograph by Agence France-Presse)