Last Throes or Just Getting Started?

Remember back in June of 2005 when Vice President Dick Cheney said this about the ongoing violence and death in Iraq:

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Well now the Department of Defense reports that 2007 is the deadliest year of the Iraq war. Even though there are roughly two months left in the year, more than 850 American GIs have been killed, surpassing the previous record set in 2004.

If this is the last throes, one hates to think what an active insurgency would do.