Mid-Day Update: Italy Runs For The Doors In Iraq

by Steve Soto

The Pentagon now appears ready to admit that Marines murdered nearly two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, after initially trying to cover up the crime.

Italy is pulling almost half of its troops in Iraq out next month.

Judge Reggie Walton has ruled that Time Magazine must turn over Matthew Cooper’s notes and drafts to Scooter. It appears to the judge that Cooper may have changed his story slightly during the investigation.

Here in California, both State Treasurer Phil Angelides and State Controller Steve Westly are now even with Schwarzenegger in a head-to-head race amongst likely voters.

James Sensenbrenner repeated today that there is little chance that the GOP House will go along with much if any of the Senate’s just-passed immigration bill. Watch the GOP eat each other alive on this.

At a House Intelligence Committee hearing today on the media’s role in reporting on national security issues, both the GOP chairman Peter Hoekstra and the ranking member Jane Harman agreed that the Bush Administration classifies too much information, and that the answer isn’t to prosecute reporters for reporting leaked information.

After waiting for an answer from the Bush Administration to its offer for direct talks on Iraq’s future, Iran today withdrew the offer and decided instead to work with all neighboring states on a regional solution, rather than involve the US. This came after Iraq sided with Iran on its development of a nuclear energy program, and after Russia gave the finger to Bush and went ahead with selling surface-to-air missile systems to Iran.

Rick Santorum doesn’t even live in Pennsylvania anymore.