This morning Mr Bu$h called for patience from his critics, asking them for some time as he waits something magical to happen.

"We're still at the beginning of this offensive, but we're seeing some hopeful signs," Bush said in his weekly radio address, in which he likened U.S. troops deployed around the globe to the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

"We're engaging the enemy, and killing or capturing hundreds," said Bush, who is losing GOP support for his decision in January to send 30,000 extra troops to Iraq to secure Baghdad and Anbar.

Umm…. Still at the beginning, and all the “al Qaeda” seem to have slipped away.

[A]ccording to local residents, most insurgents fled Baqouba two days before the offensive started, tipped off by reports on Iraqi television that U.S. and Iraqi government forces were set to begin a massive sweep of the city.

As Stars and Stripes reported yesterday the offensive in Baquba killed 60 of the estimated 500 “al Qaeda” suspected to be in that city. There were also 74 suspects arrested.

When Mr Bu$h referred to killing “hundreds” of the “enemy” I’m sure he meant these, too.

BAGHDAD - American soldiers rolled into Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City slum on Saturday in search of Iranian-linked militants and as many as 26 Iraqis were killed in what a U.S. officer described as "an intense firefight."

But residents, police and hospital officials said eight civilians were killed in their homes and angrily accused U.S. forces of firing blindly on the innocent. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the raids and demanded an explanation for the assault into a district where he has barred U.S. operations in the past.

Under Viet Nam rules these dead civilians would be VC “terrorists”, and the women and children would be “terrorist sympathizers.” So, maybe it is progress of a sort: it provides a body count, which is now considered a “metric” although two years ago CENTCOM said they don’t count Iraqi dead. It also cuts down on the potential terrorists, just in case they weren’t terrorists when they were alive.

And of course PM Maliki specifically prohibited operations in Sadr City, and while our rulers pretend he’s the head of a “sovereign nation”

The military explains that they were rolling and took fire, so they returned fire. Surprisingly, civilians disagreed with them.

Witnesses said U.S. forces rolled into their neighborhood before dawn and opened fire without warning.

''At about 4 a.m., a big American convoy with tanks came and began to open fire on houses -- bombing them,'' said Basheer Ahmed, who lives in Sadr City's Habibiya district. ''What did we do? We didn't even retaliate -- there was no resistance.''

According to Iraqi officials, the dead included three members of one family -- a father, mother and son. Several women and children, along with two policemen, were among the wounded, they said.

Viet Nam rules are bizarre. From the same NY Times article:

[T]wo American soldiers are accused of killing three Iraqis in separate incidents, then planting weapons on the victims' remains, the military said in a statement. Fellow soldiers reported the alleged crimes, which took place between April and this month near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, it said. … [Name deleted] is charged with three counts each of premeditated murder, obstructing justice and ''wrongfully placing weapons with the remains of deceased Iraqis,'' the military said. He was placed in military confinement in Kuwait on Thursday.

[Name deleted] Sandoval faces one count each of premeditated murder and placing a weapon with the remains of a dead Iraqi, a statement said. He was taken into custody Tuesday while at home in Texas, and was transferred to military confinement in Kuwait three days later, it said.

That’s how you turn a “terrorist sympathizer” into a terrorist, but it’s a bit surprising that US troops are now carrying “drop guns.” I always thought only bad cops did that.