A View From Baghdad That

You don't see on CNN, CBS, or presented by the White House.

A London Times reporter has returned to Baghdad after a few months absence and is shocked at how bad it has gotten.

There were cars full of gunmen prowling his mixed neighborhood, he said. He and his neighbor's were frantically exchanging information, trying to identify the gunmen.

Were they the Mahdi Army, the Shia militia blamed for drilling holes in their victims' eyes and limbs before executing them by the dozen? Or were they Sunni insurgents hunting down Shias to avenge last Sunday's massacre, when Shia gunmen rampaged through an area called Jihad, pulling people from their cars and homes and shooting them in the streets?

He is getting first hand reports of a state of total anarchy and open secular warfare.

Marauding Mahdi gunmen, seeking to drive all Sunnis from the area, were fighting Sunni Mujahidin for control of a nearby strategic position. I could hear the gunfire blazing over the phone.

We phoned the US military trainer attached to Iraqi security forces in the area. He said there was nothing to be done: "There's always shooting at night here. It's like chasing ghosts."

In fact the US military generally responds only to request for support from Iraqi security forces. But as many of those forces are at best turning a blind eye to the Shia death squads, and at worst colluding with them, calling the Americans is literally the last thing they do.

So, how exactly is the government we created, the government we are supporting with force of arms, money and prestige responding?

A local journalist told me bitterly this week that Iraqis find it ironic that Saddam Hussein is on trial for killing 148 people 24 years ago, while militias loyal to political parties now in government kill that many people every few days.

{bold mine}

And Bush, and Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and Rice, and Hassert, and Frist, and even Liberman keep saying it is getting better.

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Iraq