Iraq War II (III?) update:

Debka contends that there are mass desertions among Iraqi security forces.

The breakdown of the US-designed Iraqi security apparatuses in Mosul and Baghdad is catching on fast in other apparently stable parts of the country. According to DEBKAfile's military sources, a wave of desertions is sweeping the 150,000-strong command and rank-and-file levels of the Iraqi army, border guard and police.
Smoke billows from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad Saturday

Faced with these desertions, the Iraqi Governing Council is beginning to fall apart as one minister after another abandons the government and security ship painstakingly built by Bremer. Turning on its maker, the IGC demands that the US halt its military offensive in Iraq without delay.

Juan Cole thinks the Israeli killing of Hamas spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, is in part to blame for the violence in Iraq:

Just as the Israelis and their American amen corner helped drag the US into the Iraq war, so they also have inflamed Iraqi sentiment against the US by spectacular uses of state terror against Palestinians. Both the Sunni and the Shiite uprisings in Iraq in the past week in a very real sense were set off by Sharon's whacking of Yassin, a paraplegic who could easily have been arrested. (Only once Muqtada al-Sadr announced his support for Hamas was he targeted by the Neocon-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority for arrest, convincing him that he had nothing to lose and had better launch an insurgency).

There is so much news out of Iraq that I could go on and on with this. However, thedesertionss in the Iraqi army and the connection with the Israeli-Palestinian problem seem to me to be the two biggest obstacles to any transfer of power. Theredoesn'tt seem to be any possibility of a peaceful Iraq unless these problems are solved.

ToughEnough.org wonders: When will Bush acknowlege the June 30 deadline for the transfer of power to Iraq will have to be pushed back.