U.S. Fatalities for the first 2 weeks of July

U.S. Military fatalities for the Iraq war in the first 2 weeks of July totaled 35. For the entire month of July 2006 there was a total of 43 fatalities.

As I said during the second week of June, the hot summer months of June, July and August in Iraq hopefully will keep the death rate down, as it did last year. This is finally bearing out this month, but did not last month, as new records were set. However, we are already at 35 deaths for the first 2 weeks of July and there were only 43 in total for all of July last year. My guess is that we will surpass those numbers. This is all while the Iraqi Parliament gets ready to take the month of August off, because they say it's too hot. They should try to carry a flak jacket and 80 lbs of gear, while trying to find the bad guys out in the sun all day, like our troops are. This is a disgrace. They should "suffer" a little and work to get the accommodations for a true participative government. But that's not what they want. Al-Maliki knows, that if we leave, the Shiites will run the country, without having to share Oil revenue with the Sunni's or Kurds. It appears that's their end game.

Things can't get better without a diplomatic solution and our President and his Secretary of State, Condi, seem to have gone AWOL in that area. Bring the troops home.