Every day, about 40 bodies arrive at the central Baghdad morgue, an official said. The numbers demonstrate a shift in the nature of the violence, which increasingly has targeted both sides of the country's Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide. ...

[T]he killings are systematic, personal. Masked gunmen storm into homes, and the victims -- the majority of them Sunnis -- are never again seen alive.

Such killings now claim nine times more lives than car bombings, according to figures provided by a high-ranking U.S. military official, who released them only on the condition of anonymity. ...

But even the grim morgue statistics -- 3,472 violent deaths in Baghdad from January through March -- do not present the full picture of the violence in the capital.

That number does not include those killed in bombings or during gunfights between insurgents and security forces because they are generally are not brought in for autopsy at the central morgue. At least 351 civilians were killed in bombings across the capital during the first three months of the year, according to calculations based on daily reports by hospital and police officials.

Those reports, considered conservative, did not include slain Iraqi security forces, Iraqis killed by U.S. or Iraqi forces, and Iraqis killed outside the capital.

In the words of Lt. Gen. William Odom (Ret.): "America must withdraw now."