Feliz Navidad

Quagmire continues:

On Saturday, twelve people -- including Iraqi police and soldiers, ministry employees, civilians and a U.S. soldier -- were killed in insurgent attacks in Iraq, police and military officials said.

And from Juan Cole:

[There were] huge demonstrations in Iraq by Sunni Arabs on Friday against what they called election fraud on Dec. 15, and after about 100 prominent Sunni candidates were excluded on the grounds that they had been high officials in the Baath Party-- reinforcing the Sunni Arab conviction that they were targeted for marginalization by the new regime.