An American UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was hit by an RPG rocket and made an emergency landing outside Baghdad in a Sunni Arab area. One soldier was wounded and the helicopter caught fire and was destroyed. Iraqi officials are blaming al Qaeda and foreigners for most of the increase in attacks. While there were about 15 attacks (against coalition troops and Iraqi police or civilians) a day during the Summer, there are now about two dozen attacks a day.
American media got their hands on a US Army "lessons learned" report on intelligence operations in Iraq. Most reporters misunderstood the report and missed what was actually going on. In the last two decades, the US military, particularly the army, has gotten much quicker at finding and fixing flaws in their operations. "After Action Reports" are quickly prepared and posted on web based sites normally open only to people in the military. This makes it easier for a solution to be developed and implemented. But to your average reporter, this process is more about a scary headline than a problem solving process.
