Remember that thing in . . . Oh, was it Iraq?

And while the MSM is obsessed with the details of Mark Foley's IMs, the train wreck in Iraq continues:

(Via Juan Cole)

Altogether, the US military announced the deaths of 9 US troops over the weekend on Sunday. Four US troops were announced killed by a roadside bomb on Sunday. The NYT says, that in addition, "The military on Sunday announced the deaths of five more American service members. Three marines died Friday from enemy action in Anbar Province, in western Iraq. Two soldiers were killed Saturday, one in Mosul by a roadside bomb and the other in Baghdad by small arms fire."

On Sunday, heavy fighting broke out in downtown Diwaniyah between US troops and the local branch of the Mahdi Army. The gunbattle erupted when the US attempted to arrest a prominent Sadrist Shiite leader. RPG and small arms arms fire echoed through the city for hours and the Shiite guerrillas managed to destroy an Abrams tank. (What? Do they have shaped charges or RPG-28s or what? Ordinary RPG shells just bounce off an Abrams.)