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CBS' Chief Foreign Correspondent, Lara Logan, spoke with Bob Schieffer on Face The Nation about the real situation on the ground in Iraq and General David Petraeus' upcoming appearance before Congress to dump propaganda give a progress report on the Bush/McCain surge. As Logan puts it, the recent fighting in Basra may have all but negated nearly all progress that the surge may have brought:

"Well, the last few weeks have really been brutal for General Petraeus because he really was looking at a year where he had managed to be quite successful in reducing violence, particularly in Baghdad and some of the surrounding areas. One of the main reasons for that are the agreement with the Sunni tribes and also with some Shiite tribes, the militias that they were forming and working with the Americans. But, those gains have almost disappeared in the face of the recent violence which spread so quickly from Basra in the south of Iraq..."

John Amato: Twenty people were killed last night which as she puts it was a very determined defense by these militias---not wanting to give up their power base and as the American Commander in charge of Sadr City said:

"He said this fight began as a fight for these rocket launch sites and it's now all about killing Americans."

I thought this was an Iraqi operation all along---sorry, I'm confused.