Bodies

From Salon's War Room we get an unfortunately worded analogy from John Boehner:

Appearing on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, House Majority Leader John Boehner called Rumsfeld "the best thing that's happened to the Pentagon in 25 years." Boehner said that the Pentagon and the military need a "transformation," and that Rumsfeld is "the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution."

We may not know where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, but we do know this: One hundred U.S. soldiers have died so far this month in Iraq, taking the U.S. death toll for the war to 2,813.

Even more unfortunately, the number of US service folk killed in Iraq has grown since that War Room post yesterday:

The U.S. death toll for October rose to 103 with the military's announcement of four additional deaths. That makes October the deadliest month for American forces since January 2005, when 107 U.S. troops were killed.

But it's not just Americans who are losing their lives:

According to an Associated Press count, October also has recorded more Iraqi civilian deaths -- 1,170 as of Monday -- than any other month since the AP began keeping track in May 2005. The next-highest month was March 2006, when 1,038 Iraqi civilians were killed in the aftermath of the Feb. 22 bombing of an important Shiite shrine in Samarra.

In a single deadly strike, 33 Shiite laborers in Sadr City were killed when a bomb in a bag exploded, scattering glasses of tea and remains of breakfasts. They had been waiting for offers of $10-a-day jobs.