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Last night, TRMS aired the conclusion of Rachel's interview with Vice President Joe Biden. In that part of the conversation, the issue of combat operations in Iraq -- and the announced end of those operations -- came up. Since there have been soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq since that August 31 announcement, Rachel asked why the phrase "end of combat operations" was used at all. The Vice President had an answer:

[I]t was very important for the sovereignty of the Iraqis, to let them know we recognize the fact they are now capable. They are capable. We'll continue to train them. We'll continue to help them. But by the end of next year, we're out, we're gone. And so, it may be, you know, a bit of a misnomer. But in literal, military terms, we are no longer in a combat lead position. We are doing support. We are protecting American facilities, the embassies. We are protecting American personnel and American citizens. And we're training Iraqis.

Allowing that "end of combat operations" may be a misnomer was hardly an adequate explanation for the next TRMS guest, Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Not adequate at all:

What may be mere semantics in politics translates into real emotion, real loss and real consequences in war. Seems that we should demand more from our leaders than wars that end with misnomers.

Among the real losses since the "end of combat operations," Rieckhoff noted, were those of Private James McClamrock and Sergeant Phillip Jenkins.

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Today is the first day since March 2003 that the U.S. has not been actively at war in Iraq. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama marked the end of combat in Iraq with an Oval Office speech thanking troops for their sacrifice.

It was never clear why we were there in the first place -- President Bush's rationale for the war shifted from links to 9-11, to weapons of mass destruction, to creating a new democracy, to Saddam Hussein being a bad man. But there were no links to 9-11 or weapons of mass destruction. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a bad man, but as Richard Engel told us last night, there is still no real democracy in Iraq and the country has become a "basket case."

On the occasion of President Obama's speech, the Republican leadership decided they and President Bush should get more credit, especially for the surge in troops that was supposed to lead to an Iraqi government and hasn't.

In the opening segment of last night's show, Rachel Maddow made this assessment of the war in Iraq:

Two American things have been accomplished in Iraq. Tens of thousands, more than a million Americans served their country in a horrible war for seven and a half years under horrible circumstances and under political leadership that was not honest about why they had been sent there. Those Americans are to be honored for what they did and what they gave and they are to be taken care of as veterans now that they're home.

The other accomplishment in Iraq is that we have finally found a way to leave, to get combat troops out, now.

Those two accomplishments belong to this president, who's overseeing the withdrawal from Iraq, and to the people who served -- the people who served honorably for these seven and a half long years.

Credit for all the rest of it, for the made-up reasons for going in, for going in in the first place, for letting Afghanistan spill out of control in favor of this war, for the constant revisions for the justifications for war to obfuscate the craven petty radicalism that really started -- Republicans, you guys can go right ahead and take that credit. Go right ahead. Credit where credit is due.

Republicans, this one's yours. It's got your name on it.

(Compare the outfits of the two on the right.)

After President Obama's speech on the Iraq War tonight, Rachel Maddow will take a look at how we got to this point. We'll see you for that at 9 Eastern. For now, pictures from Rachel's trip to Baghdad this month.

(A mosque near Firdos Square.)

(Downcast Baghdad.)

A slideshow from slideshow on our Flickr page, after the jump.

(iCasualties chart of troop injuries by state. Click to enlarge.)

In his address on the close of combat in the Iraq War tonight, President Obama is expected to "celebrate" the "tremendous sacrifice" -- press secretary Robert Gibbs' words -- made by American troops. Today at Fort Bliss, in Texas, the president told them:

The country appreciates you. I appreciate you. The most pride i take in my job is being your commander-in-chief. It also means that as we transition in Iraq, that the one thing I will insist upon for however long I remain president of the United States is that we serve you and your families as well as you serve us.

The president said his administration will devote special services for mental health needs and for traumatic brain injuries, wounds that have become hallmarks of the war in Iraq. The chart by iCasualities, above, shows the totals for troops wounded by state. iCasualties counts 4,416 deaths among U.S. service members. The worst year for American troops was 2007, with 961 Americans lost. Considering that President Bush bulled his way into seven years of war on the basis of false intelligence, theirs has been a tremendous sacrifice indeed.

We'll bring you President Obama's speech at 8 p.m. Eastern, followed by special coverage from Rachel Maddow at 9 p.m. Eastern.

NBC cameraman David Lom sends pics from our trip to Iraq -- including this one of Rachel Maddow and Cory Gnazzo taking shelter in whatever shade they could find at the Baghdad airport. The average daily high in Iraq's capital for August is 109, with an average low of 75.

(BTW, our next trip will be to another seriously hot place. We're live from New Orleans on Thursday and Friday.)

More photos from Iraq after the jump.

Cory with David Lom.

Looks positively normal, right?

Setting up on the Tigris River. That's David Lom in the white hat. Photo by Cory.

Even in the world's most difficult places, a dog = happy. Photo by Cory.

Producer Cory Gnazzo with the phone we had surgically attached to his ear

More pictures from Iraq after the jump...

Our beloved and deliberately hoopty satellite truck -- "oddjob". It has everything except the flying james bond derby hat that cuts you.

Our ragtag bunch. First - Kiann Sadeq, very Baghdad-experienced NBC producer... Fluent in Arabic and Farsi... Flew in with us from Scotland. Barfed in her helmet on a particularly challenging Blackhawk ride. A champ!

Tweedledee to my tweedledum -- the great Kimbo Dougherty, engineer and sound genius. Terrifies everyone with his top-of-the-lungs warning: "I'M A HUGGER!!" -- and he means it! Aaaaaagggghhhh!!

Let there be light in Baghdad at night -- each of those two generators on the left is bigger than a car. They power a big gaudy restaurant across the street -- and lend 5 watts to the family that lives in the sweltering apartment above them.

Side view of generators -- giver of life. You have my permission to dismiss and disdain forever any American official who downplays the importance of electricity to Iraq now -- to politics, the war, everything.

Cameraman David Lom. Flew in from Kabul to work with us -- lives in China. Fueled entirely by soda, rice krispie treats, cigarettes and cookies

Baghdad airport is amazing. Built by Saddam at whatever time this was *in* in dictator chic -- but then it sat unused because no one was really flying in or out. Preserved in amber! Sparkly!

Still life with Camry and AK-47

NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel reports live from Iraq tonight as the last combat troops drive into Kuwait. Rachel is there, broadcasting live from Baghdad. More pictures after the jump. You can also check them out on our Flickr stream.

And we mean it!

Traffic is shunted everywhere with jersey barriers. Everywhere, everywhere. I don't know what these guard towers are guarding, but it's unsettling to not be able to see if anyone's in them when you're boxed-in in traffic. They're an ideal spot not just for overwatch, but for a sniper.

Cameraman Bredun getting very meta

Watering the roadside lawn? Yeah, I dunno.

Business is slow because everyone's fasting for Ramadan.

Producer Madeleine Haeringer

Producers Madeleine Haeringer and Cory Gnazzo. The glamor. The glory.

Random guard tower on a downtown Baghdad street.

Richard Engel-- Best. Tourguide. Ever. Again.

The black banners with writing on them are death notices. Same way we post them in the paper -- they post them on the roadside.

Countdown -- Keith and Eugene -- in the chow hall in the green zone.

Rachel hard at work

"Counterinsurgency is, simply, whatever governments do to defeat rebellions," write David Kilcullen, a top adviser to American General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan.

That's the short definition. As we'll hear when Kilcullen talks with Rachel on the show tonight, counterinsurgency gets complicated on the ground. Kilcullen is a former lieutenant colonel in the Australian army and also served as a senior adviser on counterinsurgency in Iraq.

Google features a preview of his new book, Counterinsurgency. We recommend diving in now.

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO. GRAPHIC VIDEO. GRAPHIC VIDEO.

Wikileaks has just released what it describes as classified video from U.S. Apache helicopters in a July 12, 2007 attack on the suburb of New Baghdad, Iraq. The U.S. military has said that the dozen or so casualties were "anti-Iraqi forces" or "insurgents." The nonprofit Sunshine Press, which runs Wikileaks, reports:

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred.

After losing two of its own people in the attack, Reuters had been trying to get the video using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Press reports. The footage is tough stuff.

"I think they just drove over a body," one troop says on the video.

"Hah. Did he?" his colleague replies.

"Yeah."

Wikileaks posted the video along with transcripts and documents about what it says is the military's cover-up on CollateralMurder.com. There's also a 39-minute version of the video above. We'll be watching and reading along with you. Hit the comments with your observations. My first? How weird it sounds to hear the pilots and gunners sliding from "keep shooting" tough talk and cackling to the dry sound of military commanders, and then the oddly distant rat-tat-tat of the guns.

The New York Times' At War blogger Stephen Farrell reports today that what might have been the last remaining public image of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad is gone -- most of it, anyway.

You can still see part of his arm and hand, pointing the way to the future. Your challenge is to put another image in the missing space. Who's pointing now?

Ready, steady, submit!

From the depths of my New Jersey snow cave, I'm surfing the web this morning for news tidbits. Check back here regularly to see what I find.

Curling captivates Wall Street. "It is like drinking Merlot" says one trader.

An early, disastrous decision reversed: Iraq to rehire 20,000 Saddam Hussein-era soldiers.

Sen. McCain: GOP is willing to negotiate on health reform if Democrats are willing to start over.

NY Daily News says NY Governor David Paterson won't seek reelection. Update: looks like the NY Post had it first, if you care about that sort of thing (I do). Update 2: Is it correct to say "reelection" if he was never elected Governor? He was elected Lieutenant Governor.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) blocks extension of unemployment benefits and COBRA.