The Victoria Advocate | US Army Kills Wrong Insurgents in Iraq

"The United States military said it dropped a 500-pound bomb on the wrong house outside the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, killing five people. The man who owned the house said the bomb killed 14 people, and an Associated Press photographer said seven of them were children."

The Advocate leads with the scandalous quid pro quo: is it 5 or 14?

It then goes on to a near-comic, Brazil-style description:

"The house was not the intended target for the airstrike. The intended target was another location nearby," the military said in a statement.

We imagine the scene from Brazil where the police swoop in on the apartment of Mr. Buttle instead of My Tuttle, a natural mistake. The comedy ends there:

An Associated Press photographer said from the scene that 14 members of the same family - seven children, four women and three men - were killed, and six people were wounded, including another child in the house and five people from neighboring houses. By evening, all 14 victims had been buried in a nearby cemetery, Yousef said.

The U.S. military statement said coalition forces went to the area to provide assistance and said five people were killed. It said there was no other damage.

OK, five people were killed, and then some. Some old intelligence catastrophes. Anyone wonder why the insurgents have so much popularity in Iraq?