FOCUS | Iraqi Civilian Deaths Reach New High

Georgies Bloodbath, the liberation of Iraq

No Bravery

The United Nations said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll since the March 2003 US invasion and another sign of the severity of Iraq's sectarian bloodbath.

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Iraq: The War of the Imagination

Mark Danner writes: "The political implications within Iraq were incalculable, for the de-Baathification and the dissolution of the army both appeared to the Sunnis to be declarations of open warfare against them, convincing many that they would be judged not by standards of individual conduct but by the fact of their membership in a group - judged not according to what they had done but according to who they were. This in itself undermined what hope there was to create the sine qua non of a stable democracy: a loyal opposition, which is to say an opposition that believes enough in the fairness of the system that it will renounce violence."

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Perfect Killing Method, but Clear Targets Are Few

More than three years after the insurgency erupted across much of Iraq, sniping - one of the methods that the military thought would be essential in its counterinsurgency operations - is proving less successful in many areas of Iraq than had been hoped.

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