This is so sad…..More Extended Tours In Iraq And Afghanistan - To Support President Bush’s Troop Increase.

More Extended Tours In Iraq And Afghanistan - To Support President Bush’s Troop Increase.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday that all active-duty soldiers currently deployed or going to Iraq and Afghanistan will see their one-year tours extended to 15 months, acknowledging that such a strain on the war-weary Army is necessary should the ongoing troop increase be prolonged well into next year.

The decision — coming three months after President Bush put forth his new security plan for Iraq, including the deployment of at least 28,000 additional troops there — reflects the reality that the new strategy is unfeasible without introducing longer Army tours. — READ FULL ARTICLE: Already Strained Army Extends Tours To 15 Months

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ALSO SEE: Are Things Getting Worse In Iraq?

and

Are We Really Supporting Our Troops?

and

Help Veterans Now

and

CNN Poll - Most American Do Not Believe We Can Win In Iraq

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UPDATED 4/14 - Are Things Getting Even Worse In Iraq? Two Bombings Today - One Destroying A Bridge and The Other Killing 8 In The Baghdad Green Zone.

Thick smoke rises from the site of an explosion at Baghdad’s Al-Sarafiyah bridge where a suicide bomber blew up a truck, 12 April, 2007. A suicide bomber has blown himself up in the Iraqi parliament canteen in Baghdad’s Green Zone, killing three people in a major breach of security at the country’s most heavily guarded site.(AFP/Ali Yussef)

BAGHDAD - A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria Thursday, killing at least eight people in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone.

The blast came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed. –READ FULL ARTICLE

Emergency services look for survivors next to a collapsed bridge in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 12, 2007. A suicide truck bomb exploded on a major al-Sarafiya bridge in Baghdad early Thursday, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars toppling into the Tigris river below, police and witnesses said. — AP PHOTO

ALSO SEE: Bombing Inside Green Zone

TIME MAGAZINE ON TODAYS PARLIAMENT ATTACK

UPDATED 4/14 - 37 Killed In Another Car Bomb

KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) - A suicide car bomb killed 34 people near a revered Shiite shrine in Iraq’s pilgrimage city of Karbala on Saturday, exactly two months after troops launched a security crackdown in Baghdad.

Another suicide attack killed 10 people in the capital, while other violence left 18 more people dead, pushing the death toll to 62 in the latest carnage to undermine the Iraqi-US security offensive as it headed into a third month.

The Karbala bomb exploded in an area cluttered with market stalls around 200 metres (yards) from the Imam Hussein shrine, where hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims flock every March during the Shiite Ashura commemorations. — READ FULL ARTICLE

“Opit” says…….check out Post-Saddam Iraq