LOUSY IN IRAQ

Two depressing facts, one from Rorshach:

Criminals in Baghdad are stealing corpses from the scenes of car bombings and killings in order to extract ransoms from grieving relatives. In a macabre offshoot of the capital's kidnapping epidemic, the gangs pose as medics collecting bodies to be taken back to the city's overflowing morgues. Instead, they take the corpses to secret places and demand payments of up to $5,000 to release each body to relatives for burial. Because Muslim custom dictates that a body must be buried as soon as possible after death, many families simply pay up, rather than involve the police.

The other from the WaPo:

Projectile Bomb Attacks Hit Record High in Iraq
U.S. Says Weapons Are Made in Iran

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 4, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- Attacks in Iraq involving lethal weapons that U.S. officials say are made in Iran hit a record high last month, despite efforts to crack down on networks supplying the armor-piercing weapons known as explosively formed projectiles, according to a senior U.S. commander.

The number of attacks with the projectiles rose to 65 in April, said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who oversees day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq. "The overwhelming majority" were in predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad, Odierno said in an interview this week. Officials have said the projectiles are used almost exclusively by Shiite fighters against U.S. military targets.

Overall attacks using roadside bombs doubled in Iraq from 2006 to 2007 and number about 1,200 a month.