Congratulations Mr. Talky

The Iraq Invasion was has now SURPASSED, today, the length of the American involvement in World War II.

America's involvement in Iraq will reach that milestone at a time when the clamour for withdrawal has never been louder, and the possibility of achieving it has never seemed so difficult. The decisive end of World War II in 1945 delivers no lessons that could be applied to a very different war in a very different era.

If anything, things seem to be getting worse, the options less appealing. Baghdad is reeling from the deadliest assault on Iraqi civilians since the start of the US invasion in March 2003. At least 200 people died and more than 250 were injured after six car bombs, mortar attacks and missiles battered the Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City.

Plumes of black smoke and anguished screams rose above a chaotic landscape of flames and charred cars, witnesses said.

Violence later spread to other neighbourhoods in retaliatory attacks across Baghdad, even as politicians and senior religious clerics appealed for calm.

The Iraqi Government locked down the capital with an indefinite curfew and shut the airport to commercial flights.

It is a long way from Mission Accomplished - the banner that decorated a US aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003 as the US President, George Bush, proclaimed the end of "major combat operations". Forty-four months on, Americans still count the cost of the war: more than 2860 US soldiers dead, more than 21,000 injured

And as noted in the article, by this time World War II was OVER, in Iraq it is only getting progressively worse.

Heckuva job Bushie!