"We recovered hundreds-of-thousands of bodies in mass graves across the country, many of which were dedicated to children three to six-years-old"

"My own region, Kurdistan, was decimated by Saddam,"

Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, said as he reminded an American audience including W. Thomas Smith, Jr whom and what exactly the peace camp defended.

"He destroyed about 4,000 villages, killed about 200,000 people, and used chemical and biological weapons in over 250 incidences – primarily against civilians."

Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, most Kurds believed themselves to be the only victims of Saddam’s brutality. "But when the regime fell, we realized that Iraqi Arabs were also victims," Talabani says. "We recovered hundreds-of-thousands of bodies in mass graves across the country, many of which were dedicated to children three to six-years-old. Most had been experimented on by the regime. I cannot describe the carnage and brutality in a way that you would be able to comprehend just how bad it really was." …

Despite problems stemming from fear and mistrust, Talabani is quick to point out the ongoing, and too-often underreported, positive developments in Iraq.

"Of the 18 different governorates [provinces] – similar to the states you have here in the U.S. – 13 or 14 of them are relatively calm and stable," he says. "People are going about their daily lives and trying to rebuild the country."

Robert Tracinski adds:

What no one seems prepared to acknowledge is that April 9, 2003, was the day we won the war in Iraq (though not, by any means, the broader War on Terrorism). It was the day we broke all militarily significant, large-scale resistance and established our ability to control Iraq militarily and establish a new government on our terms. No action by any enemy since then has reversed that victory.

And more: it was the day we crushed fascist Arab nationalism—an ideology that had already been weakened by the 1991 Gulf War, but which was terminally humiliated by the fall of Saddam. That was a big achievement, and it has now freed us to face the larger threat of totalitarian Islam—but the press has so magnified the pathetic terrorist insurgency in Iraq that they have almost made that victory disappear.

81, 76, 50, 49, 43, 25

What are these numbers? This week’s Powerball winners? A safe deposit combo? New numbers to torment those poor b*stards stranded on the island in Lost?

Election Analysis provides the answer.