White House's Week From Hell--Salon.com

Here's the news. I'm done. i like the point below that Bush probably wishes for the good ole days when he was trying to explain how he skipped out on military service while we were at war.

A few more rocky news weeks like this and president Bush will be pining for the good old days of say, February when his most pressing political concern was trying to explain why he skipped a year's worth of National Guard duty during the Vietnam War. Before we get to Friday's must-reads, a quick look back at the White House's week from hell.

First and foremost was the continued meltdown in Iraq, which included the assassination of Ezzedine Salim, head of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, warnings from U.S. generals that Iraq might actually turn more deadly following the June 30th transfer of power, and news that the popularity of Iraqi outlawed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has surged. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz finally admitted, sort of, that the Pentagon's neocons were clueless about war planning, while the Baghdad office of their former INC point man, Ahmad Chalabi, was trashed during a Thursday morning raid, lead by Iraqi police and U.S. forces. And this Marine, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey, just back from Iraq recounted how soldiers routinely 'lit up' unarmed Iraqi civilians. That, while the administration's unique policy of complete disengagement from the Middle East peace process lead to especially gruesome results.

On the Abu Ghraib prison abuse front, the scandal this week broke more ways than a Tim Wakefield knuckleball. Rather than fix the problem early on, the Army tried to curb the Red Cross' access to prison, the first of many court martial proceedings began, Reuters and NBC journalists claimed they were abused by GI's in mind-numbing ways, while Private Lynndie England recounted how prisoners were made to crawl through broken glass and wear Maxi Pads. And oh yeah, Sgt. Samuel Provance, who did intel work at Abu Ghraib, told AB