U.S. Intelligence Offers Gloomy Outlook for Iraq (nytimes.com, 09/16/04). Also, U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future (nytimes, 09/16/04).

The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms....

[yet]

"You know, every step of the way in Iraq there have been pessimists and hand-wringers who said it can't be done," Mr. McClellan [White House spokesperson] said at a news briefing. "And every step of the way, the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people have proven them wrong because they are determined to have a free and peaceful future."

One wonders whether the spokesperson remains so upbeat because he knows he will never need to visit Iraq?

Weapons Inspectors: Iraq Study Finds Desire for Arms, but Not Capacity (nytimes.com, 09/17/04). After an exhaustive study, we still went to war over bad intentions. Or, more specifically, intentions to have the same sort of weaponry that the U.S. maintains, and that the U.S. sells or provides to its allies.

Usually, there are less harsh punishments for wanting to be like the U.S....

I know that both of the U.S. presidential candidates believe that Iraq's problems have a military solution, but the news on what that approach has brought is isn't currently compelling. Baghdad Violence Leaves at Least 52 Dead (news.yahoo.com, 09/17/04). The U.S. military death toll is already at 1,027; the "unrest" (such understatement) is resulting in more terrible attacks. And the "air strike" approach to killing militants is causing great damage.

West of Baghdad, hundreds of men dug mass graves to bury the dead from a wave of American airstrikes that started late Thursday and stretched into Friday in and around Fallujah. Health Ministry official Saad al-Amili said at least 44 people were killed and 27 wounded in the Fallujah strikes.

... Mahmoud Sheil, 50, a tribal sheik in the area, likened the killings from U.S. airstrikes in Fallujah to the slaughter of civilians under Saddam Hussein's ousted dictatorship.

'They (the Americans) say that Saddam is the man of mass graves, but they are the ones responsible for these mass graves,' he said.

This approach is still not winning hearts and minds for the U.S.

On the deaths on Haifa Street, captured on video

Salam Pax is again providing an incredible service to the outside world with his new blog. His entry shut up you fat whiner!: "he got injured" (justzipit.blogspot.com, 09/14/04) provides several things. It provides a link to his injured journalist friend (Ghaith), including a photo.

It provides a link to all the 'editorial' (news) photos his friend filed, including some very sad and very gory ones which will never be seen in the U.S. press, (editorial.gettyimages.com). Intrepid researchers can look at these images prior to commercial media filtration.

And then there are the comments upon this entry from Pax's readers. (Which Pax is very brave to allow, considering the boneheaded remarks he often receives.)

Most useful: link to Motive for Haifa Street Helicopter Massacre Remains a Mystery, by Brian Dominick (iraq-war.ru, 09/15/04). Relevant excerpts:

he US military has offered at least two distinct explanations for killing thirteen people and wounding at least sixty others, including children, early Monday morning on Haifa Street in a residential area of central Baghdad.... Abundant eyewitness testimony backed up by television footage indicates the helicopters fired directly at the crowd, at least most of whose members were clearly unarmed.....

On the Al-Arabiya video, there is no sign of fire coming from the ground, and no fire from above precedes the explosions that killed and wounded noncombatants far from the disemboweled Bradley.

But footage taken by an Al-Arabiya crew at the scene clearly shows explosions among a crowd of noncombatants some distance from the burning Bradley fighting vehicle, an armored troop transporter that resembles a tank. In fact, even though the Bradley is shown in the distant background as Palestinian TV producer Mazen Al-Tumeizi set up for a live interview at the scene, one of the missiles fired from US aircraft hit close enough to kill Al-Tameizi and wound the camera operator, Seif Fouad.

The article continues with a report from Pax's injured friend, which another blog comment entry provides a link for: 'He's just sleeping, I kept telling myself' (guardian.co.uk, 09/14/04 -- warning, pictures of dead people).

Once I knew what to look for, I was also a able to find a related story at the BBC: Media spotlight on Baghdad deaths (bbc.com, 09/13/04). This article emphasizes the fact that this attack on civilians was recorded, notes the discrepancies and differing accounts offered by the U.S. military, and discusses deaths of journalists at the hands of U.S. forces, and recounts past incidents. (It features stills of the al-Arabiya reporter's video before and after he was fatally injured.) Plus, it has this comment:

In a phone call from Baghdad on Monday, the US military was unable to clarify why none of the TV footage or press pictures showed armed people at the scene or recorded any gunfire.

(See also, ABC news: "Reuters TV footage of the incident showed no evidence any of the Iraqis around the Bradley vehicle were armed or had opened fire." (09/13/04))

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So, by providing a personal connection, and a forum for people to share additional information on this horrific incident, Pax is really letting us know what it's like to be a civilian in Iraq.

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Yes, Pax has historically supported a U.S. presence until order can be restored. No, that doesn't make this any easier for him to cope with.

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Least useful reader comment, but very interesting in a strange way: a U.S. soldier writing to Pax: "As a soldier we don't want to kill, we kill because it is our job." As if getting a paycheck for killing makes it acceptable. As if killing for money rather than ideology makes dead civilians less dead.

Iraq security picture (bbc.com, 09/13/04) provides a list of cities and areas which are no longer under US or US-allied-Iraqi control around the country.

It's a long list.

Am I surprised that the US wants to divert money from water, sewage, and electrical service for the Iraqi people to security activities? No. Iraq: Signs of desperation (bbc.com, 09/14/04). The article provides excerpts from the report of a think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which states:

Two months after the United States transferred sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government... Iraq remains embroiled in an insurgency, with security problems overshadowing other efforts to rebuild Iraq's fragile society in the areas of governance and participation, economic opportunity, services and well-being.

Kofi Annan, ever diplomatic, has had wrested from him a more direct statement than he has yet given about Iraq. In the BBC article, "Choice of words matters," Annan says the US invasion of Iraq was illegal. (bbc.com, 09/16/04).

Of course, "US says Iraq invasion was legal" (bbc.com, 09/16/04), but it has to say that. The argument that Iraq HAD to be invaded because of the imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction is still in force in this article -- parties supportive of the invasion still insist that the United Nations wasn't acting, so the U.S. HAD TO -- because. Just because. Even though, in retrospect, the UN was right. Ooops. Darn those pesky facts.