How's that surge going, anyway?

"The reports I'm hearing from people whose views I respect indicate that the Petraeus plan is in fact producing results." -- Dick Cheney, to Larry King, July 31, 2007

And here are those results:

Baghdad shook with bombings and political upheaval Wednesday as the largest Sunni Arab bloc quit the government and a suicide attacker blew up his fuel tanker in one of several attacks that claimed 142 lives nationwide.

The Iraqi Accordance Front's withdrawal from the Cabinet leaves only two Sunnis in the 40-member body, undermining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's efforts to pull together rival factions and pass reconciliation laws the U.S. considers benchmarks that could lead to sectarian reconciliation.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of four more American soldiers, including three killed in Baghdad on Tuesday by a powerful armor-piercing bomb. Washington says these types of bombs are sent from Iran. The fourth soldier was killed by small arms fire on the same day. A British soldier also was killed Tuesday in a roadside bombing.

The American military announced it found a mass grave in Diyala province northeast of the capital. The grave contained 17 bodies of mostly Sunni Muslims — including women, children and elderly people — killed by al-Qaida in Iraq, the military said in a statement. U.S. forces did not say how they knew the attackers were al-Qaida in Iraq.

Altogether at least 142 Iraqis were killed or found dead, including 70 in three separate bombings Wednesday in Baghdad. The violence came after July ended as the second-deadliest month for Iraqis so far this year, but with the lowest U.S. death toll in eight months.

But as long as the dead are Iraqis, Americans really don't much care. And Dick Cheney sure as hell doesn't care.