Death in Iraq: Day 1,838

Let us call things by their right names, especially in Iraq. The surge was an escalation. The drawdown is a chimera. The embassy is a fortress. Iraq is a charnel house.

And every day, many more people die, young and old, innocent and guilty, soldiers and civilians, Americans and Iraqis. Five years after the invasion, with mortar shells falling in the Green Zone, chaos and danger are unabated, and the total number of dead can only be estimated:

• more than 1,000,000 Iraqis, who continue to perish by the thousands every week
• 4,011 American military personnel, including 145 who died of self-inflicted wounds
• 309 other coalition military personnel
• more than 1,000 coalition contractors
• at least 157 journalists

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, perhaps egged on by his recent visitor Dick Cheney, last week attacked the Mahdi Army in Basra, the country's second-largest city. But his fellow Shiites refused to lay down their arms. So George Bush, proclaiming "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," sent in American warplanes to help his puppet ruler. It was in vain, and Maliki had to send envoys to Iran, seeking out Muqtada al-Sadr to plead for peace. After he acceded to al-Sadr's terms (supported by the Iranian government), fighting died down. A defining moment indeed: another success for Iran, another defeat for Bush.

The occupation of death continues.