Iraq Talk in Congress - "Blah, blah, blah..."

General Petraeus: man of the hour! Photo by Charlie Archambault, from USN&WR.

Today's Congressional testimony delivered by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker served as a good refresher for the people that didn't pay attention to even a shred of last month's coverage on the Iraq war.

Now it looks official that Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army (which by all accounts appears far more effective, organized and disciplined than Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's mostly S.I.I.C.-allied Iraqi Army), along with a myriad of other militias, will furthermore be crammed into a nominal catch-phrase: "Special Groups." Needless to say, this is sure to make the endless hunt for "bad guys" all the more confusing.

Update, 4/10, 12:34 p.m. - I should probably consider Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki responsible for the Iraq Army, huh? At the moment I couldn't really tell you how S.I.I.C.'s armed wing, the Badr Organization, fits into the whole "special groups" vs. Iraq Army thing - whether they're a "special group" or serial infiltrators (and, judging by the news coverage surrounding the latest bout of fighting in Basra, serial deserters) of the Army. I'm guessing that they're both...

11:29 p.m.

Bush speaks!

And the war's critics put the pressure on him.

"The president has taken us into a failed war, he's taken us deeply into debt and that debt is taking us into recession," said Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, according to BBC. "We need some answers from the president."