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There are now more US troops in Iraq than ever before, and more of them are dying on a daily basis as the grind of continued operations takes its toll.

In this week's episode of Dateline, John Martinkus takes us on patrol in the worst province of Iraq: the Diyala River Valley. More US soldiers have died here in the last six months than anywhere else in the country. It's a province littered with deadly improvised explosive devices, snipers, car bombs and booby-trapped houses. With the battle for Baghdad now over, US soldiers are concentrating their efforts in the Valley, slogging it out in the intense summer heat in a war that is looking more and more like Vietnam every day.

Also on Dateline, Ginny Stein travels to Montana and Wyoming, where dinosaur bones are fast becoming the latest form of superannuation among farmers down on their luck. A long drought has left their once-fertile fields dry and barren. So, farmers are leasing their land to commercial fossil-hunting companies who dig up dinosaur bones, make replicas, and then sell both originals and copies to the highest bidder, handing the farmer a percentage of the profits.

To some scientists, the duplicating, buying, and selling of America's natural history is an outrage. In addition, they claim that the bulldozers and backhoes used to excavate can destroy other valuable specimens. Commercial fossil hunters argue they use accredited paleontologists on their digs and only bring in heavy machinery when it can be done safely. The companies claim that without them, many museums would have no fossils or fossil replicas to exhibit, and public interest in the prehistoric would dwindle.

Dinosaurs: for preservation or profit? This week on Dateline.

About International Dateline 

SBS Dateline, which began in 1984, is Australia's longest-running international current affairs program. It has a well-earned reputation for authoritative and incisive reporting. Dateline has taken the traditional way of producing TV current affairs and turned it on its head. Reporters who used to travel with a cameraperson and sound recordist now travel alone and have the responsibility of both filming and reporting their stories. The reporters became video-journalists, gaining access to people and places that the conventional camera crews cannot.