"prepare to take back"!?; "prepare to take"!?: who the hell writes this stuff?

i should be writing about custer battles and roy trumble, but it is too difficult to figure out who is sleasiest, so i will just attack our journalists instead.

• Bombings and shootings killed more than 70 people in Iraq on Tuesday in a surge of bloodshed as U.S. forces prepare to take back Baghdad's streets from gunmen. The dead included 20 Iraqi troops, a U.S. soldier and a British soldier. (Attacks across Iraq kill more than 70, By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer, 1 Aug. 2006, BAGHDAD, Iraq)

how long have usa troops been in iraq? they are just now preparing to take back baghdad's streets? give me a break. why not let rumsfeld just write the ap articles?