Any reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq will be based strictly on security conditions in the country and the readiness of Iraqi forces to conduct independent operations, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman in Baghdad said today. The United States will not reduce forces until the Iraqi security forces can maintain the security environment, Air Force Brig. Gen. Donald Alston stressed in a news conference.

Thirty percent of U.S. troops surveyed have developed stress-related mental health problems three to four months after coming home from the Iraq war, the Army's surgeon general said Thursday. The survey of 1,000 troops found problems including anxiety, depression, nightmares, anger and an inability to concentrate, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley and other military medical officials. A smaller number of troops, often with more severe symptoms, were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a serious mental illness.

According to Iraq's minister of civil society activities, Ala'a al-Safi, "The Americans – if they like it or don't like it – we don't care. That's their internal issue. Now we are asking for the Americans to draw a timeline of leaving Iraq, and we will make it a priority too, if they force us to make a bad relationship with our neighbors."

During more than seven hours of testimony this week, a Senate committee heard that Iraq is in a low-grade civil war, that there are no additional U.S. or allied troops to help and that Iraqi soldiers are far from ready to take over.

The people of Baghdad do not need statistics to tell them that they are living through terror unimaginable in the West. Every two days for the past two years more civilians have died in Iraq than in the July 7 London bombings. Such incidents are so common they merit little attention in the world's press.

More than one-third of Americans surveyed today say they worry Iraq could become another Vietnam. And politicians from both major parties, especially those facing re-election next year, are worrying aloud about public perception and military prospects, much as they did when U.S. casualties began mounting in Vietnam.

Transformed into a police state after last winter's siege, this should be the safest city in all of Iraq. But the insurgency is rising from the rubble nevertheless, eight months after the American military killed as many as 1,500 Iraqis in a costly invasion that fanned anti-American passions across Iraq and the Arab world.

When will it end? Where will it all lead? The experts aren’t encouraged. One prominent terrorism researcher sees the prospect of “endless” war. Adds the man who tracked Osama bin Laden for the CIA, “I don’t think it’s even started yet.” In fact, says Michael Scheuer, the ex-CIA analyst, rather than move toward solutions, the United States took a big step backward by invading Iraq.

Baghdad's mayor decried the capital's crumbling infrastructure and its inability to supply enough clean water to residents, threatening Thursday to resign if the government won't provide more money. The statement from Mayor Alaa Mahmoud al-Timimi was an indication of the daily misery that Baghdad's 6.45 million people still endure more than two years after the U.S.-led invasion. They are wracked not only by unrelenting bombings and kidnappings, but by serious shortages in water, electricity and fuel.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel slammed the George W. Bush administration's Iraq policy as "disconnected from reality" in some of the harshest comments to date about the war from a member of the president's own party. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq," said Hagel, who added that increasingly, fellow Republicans are coming to share his view.