Number of US troops wounded, KIA in Iraq down from last year

Barring a New Year's Eve plane crash, 2006 looks like a slightly better year in Iraq for US casualties

...the year total of 816 as of Saturday morning, is on course to be slightly lower than last year's 846 U.S. fatalities.

The number of U.S. wounded also declined this year, from 5,947 in 2005 to 5,676 so far this year.

The headline above the story? Monthly U.S. military deaths in Iraq reach 2-year high

See also here and here.

Wounded Milblogger/Valour-IT Update

John of Argghhh, on a Valour-IT laptop for J.R. Salzman:

The Elves are quick. From email: "...it should be delivered next weekend, assuming they can get ahold of Salzman's family to arrange for the meeting. "

Those of you who contribute to Project Valour-IT - thank you ever so much.

On Saddam

Hussein executed, Iraqi TV stations report

The witness reported that celebrations broke out after Hussein was dead, and that there was "dancing around the body."

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not attend the execution, according to an adviser to the prime minister who was interviewed on state television.

The execution was videotaped and photographed, state television reported, and those images will be distributed to the media.

Al-Arabiya television network reported that Barzan Hassan, Hussein's half-brother, and Awad Bandar, former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were hanged after Hussein. All three were convicted of killings in the Iraqi town of Dujail nearly 25 years ago.

Jules Crittenden hits his (blogging) stride in Dead by Dawn? - which segues to a brief glimpse at reporting in the early days of the invasion.

I think Jules and I are in about the same frame of mind on the execution.

I's add that it's a damn rare thing to see a tyrant meet his maker in such a manner. Unprecedented in modern history?

WMD and other (IMHO) unfortunate advertising gimmicks aside, the fundamental reason for invading Iraq in the first place was a notion that perhaps if freed from Saddam's oppressive rule the Iraqis could build a model democracy*. I'll admit I believed that in 2003 (with the "perhaps" qualifier included, I'm a bit too old to live without it) but I'd like to see more evidence of it now - say more folks acting instead of wishing (or awaiting Allah's will). But perhaps too many were his children after all, and he the only model to which they aspire.

However few there may be to oppose such as that, I'm still on their side.

Mike Yon, in Kuwait:

This war is strange. I never hear soldiers worried about their own morale sagging. Contrary, the war-fighters here are more concerned to bolster the morale of the people at home. Here in Kuwait, where the dining facilities are bedecked in Christmas decorations, soldiers stream in from Iraq on convoys and stream back north along those bomb-laden roads. The service members here are not all rear-echelon people who never see fighting or blood. Yet their overall morale obviously is high. Few of them know I am a writer, and so they speak freely at the tables around me. In Qatar, from which I’d just departed, I spoke with troops taking four-day R&R passes, some having just returned from the most dangerous parts of Iraq, and others heading straight back, and their overall morale was also very high. The morale at war is higher than I have ever seen it at home; makes me wonder what they know that most Americans seem to be missing.

So is Bill Ardolino, whose INDC journal has a new name. He says he's headed to the airport to manifest for a flight - which shouldn't in any way be confused with the act of getting on a plane that takes you where you want to go.

They arrive in interesting times.

On this fine night I'll tip a cool one indeed - for those who never will again. I think one would have to have been in Iraq at some point in the past 4 years to really get that. Perhaps because I've been there, done that, and will again I just don't share the enthusiasm expressed as so many exclamation points (!!!!) and cheers from so many bloggers who haven't and never will. I feel no thrill in this moment. I suppose any death in Iraq tomorrow will be depicted as "retaliatory". If there's none to speak of I'll feel joy at that.

But this email alert from the WaPo just utterly falls short:

The text reads:

Former Iraqi President Hussein Executed
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who rose from humble beginnings to build the Arab world's most ruthless dictatorship but whose fall unleashed a turbulent era for his nation and the world, was executed early Saturday morning in Baghdad, according to Iraqi state television.

Iraq the Model will be worth a frequent read tonight.

*The "Yeah, but why the f--- should we care?" angle being another issue altogether, and one that good people can argue reasonably.