Even the optimists are losing heart as Iraq goes from bad to worse

[UpInArms]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1030002,00.html

excerpt:

It is not that the power supply has still not improved. It has worsened. Four months after television screens across the world showed the victorious toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdous Square, power cuts are more frequent, not less. In many Baghdad homes the water that flows from the taps is brackish and undrinkable. Water treatment plants, short of electricity and poisoned by their own rusting pipes, are failing.

How could a country, the Iraqis ask, that spent $9bn (£5.73bn) a month fighting the war against Saddam not restore the power supply to a city within four months? When I was here in June, I listened to Paul Bremer, the American administrator of Iraq, insist that there was now more electricity being supplied than under Saddam. The Iraqis scoffed at his exaggeration. Now when American officials promise that prewar supply really will be restored by the end of next month few believe them.

<snip>

Better to cut patrols than to lose men, the commanders decided. Security outside US military bases is tighter and more paranoid than ever. A sign outside a recruiting station for the new Iraqi army warns people not to stop, stand or park near the entrance. The advice is given bluntly: "Violators are subject to deadly force."

...and so much much more...

[GreenGreenLimaBean]

1. But Donald said this isn't true.

Your repeating the same news dozens of times to make it seem worse
than it is....

[hadrons]

2. Brit Hume says things are great in Iraq ...

I saw him say it from the air-conditioned studios of FauxNews

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. Wow, Bushco has the same respect for the Iraqi citizenry as he has

for the general American populace!