Main weekly Muslim prayers in the holy city of Najaf were scrapped for the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein...

--AFP

Hmmm -- I'm no Muslim, but even I know that's not a good sign. And you don't need to be a Muslim to understand this:

Militiamen loyal to the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr seized a police station in the center of Najaf on Thursday, set prisoners free and allowed looters to plunder the building...

But they're burying Ronnie -- we're not allowed to pay attention to this today, are we? Nor are we allowed to pay attention to the story about the apples being ordered to be bad:

U.S. intelligence personnel ordered military dog handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to use unmuzzled dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations late last year, a plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the facility, according to sworn statements the handlers provided to military investigators.

A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were "having a contest" to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs...

And in case you've forgotten, the dogs didn't just frighten and intimidate -- they used those bared teeth:

"They sent the dogs toward me. I was scared," [detainee Ballendia Sadawi] Mohammed told investigators. "The first dog bit my leg and injured me there and this was bad luck. The bite from the first dog caused me to have 12 stitches from the doctor of my left leg as a result I lost a lot of blood."

Spec. Sabrina D. Harman, a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, said she saw the incident and said the detainee was bitten after he tried to run from the dog and was cornered. Cardona, whose dog apparently bit the detainee twice, once on each leg, justified letting his dog go to the end of its leash because he believed the detainee was fighting with Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr.

Military investigative records show that Frederick and Graner were key participants in the abuse. Harman, who said she saw two other inmates with dog bites around late December, also has been charged.