Another tricky day

More progress in Iraq:

Also Tuesday, gunmen wearing Interior Ministry commando uniforms kidnapped up to 150 staff members from a government research institute in downtown Baghdad, the head of the parliamentary education committee said.

Alaa Makki interrupted a televised parliamentary session to say reports had been received that between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis, had been abducted in the raid at about 9:30 a.m. He urged the prime minister and ministers of interior and defense to rapidly respond to what he called a "national catastrophe."