More Messopotamia
USA Today on Iraq

In an editorial on USA Today's website http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-10-06-iraq-edit_x.htm seens to contradict our fearless leader:

This week, Iraqi journalists sat down with USA TODAY's editors and reporters. Most said an undeclared civil war is already in progress. U.S. forces routinely tell embedded U.S. reporters that they are stretched too thin. And though it's true U.S. troops have seized towns, all too often insurgents return once the forces have gone or pop up elsewhere, as in a deadly game of Whack-a-Mole. The civil war threat is not coming from only the insurgents. Militias from different factions — Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south — are growing stronger and less inclined to submit to central control. Many ordinary Iraqis, frustrated that their daily lives are little improved — Baghdad is without electricity for half the day and wracked by bombings — say they feel alienated from the political process, including next week's vote on a constitution.