U.S. Armor Forces Join Offensive In Baghdad Against Sadr Militia – washingtonpost.com

BAGHDAD, March 28 — U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in the vast Shiite stronghold of Sadr City and U.S. aircraft bombed militant positions in the southern city of Basra, as the American role in a campaign against party-backed militias appeared to expand. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the Sadr City fighting, as American troops took the lead.

…this would be the lead story for weeks. Back on my planet, when we engaged in such bloody (oily) fighting, the hov-cams would be on location for weeks. They’d even be all over the salvage wars.

Funny how none of this violence makes it to the screens of a violence-obsess culture. Really funny. I laugh myself to sleep about it twice a week.

As President Bush told an Ohio audience that Iraq was returning to “normalcy,” administration officials in Washington held meetings to assess what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country.

American forces were involved in approximately a dozen firefights on Thursday in Baghdad alone, with fighting spread across six neighborhoods, according to information released by the U.S. military Friday morning. U.S. ground patrols in areas like Kadhamiyah and New Baghdad repeatedly came under attack from small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, responding with their own weapons and in one case calling in helicopter support. In that incident, the helicopter fired a hellfire missile into a group of militants that had attacked U.S. troops manning a checkpoint in Kadhamiyah, killing three of them. When the militants renewed their attack, the helicopter returned and killed 10 more using a 30mm gun, according to a U.S. military release.

Bush was right about one thing this week, Iraq is returning to normalcy.  The normalcy of war and occupation.  The normalcy of chaos.