Iraq is in chaos

No matter how tomorrow's vote goes, Iraq might be a lost cause. Only time (lots of it) will tell how it will turn out to be. This Independent article by Robert Fisk, a Middle East correspondent, is quite sobering, more proof of Bush's rising mound of lies:

Most of Iraq is in a state of anarchy, with insurgents controlling parts of Baghdad just half a mile from the so-called Green Zone, an Independent debate was told last night..

He told the debate in London: "The Americans must leave Iraq and they will leave Iraq, but they can't leave Iraq and that is the equation that turns sand to blood. At some point, they will have to talk to the insurgents.

"But I don't know how, because those people who might be negotiators - the United Nations, the Red Cross - their headquarters have been blown up. The reality now in Iraq is the project is finished. Most of Iraq, except Kurdistan, is in a state of anarchy."

He said that the portrayal of Iraq by Western leaders - of efforts to introduce democracy, including Saturday's national vote on the country's proposed constitution -­ was "unreal" to most of its citizens. In Baghdad, children and women were kept at home to prevent them from being kidnapped for money or sold into slavery. They faced a desperate struggle to find the money to keep generators running to provide themselves with electricity. "They aren't sitting in their front rooms discussing the referendum on the constitution."

I think television connives with governments at war." He added: "Newspapers can tell you as closely as they can what these horrors are like."

Fisk was also asked about the implications of publishing graphic images of the dead. This was his reply:

He rejected suggestions that graphic pictures of the dead in newspapers took away their dignity. He said: "My view is the people who are dead would want us to record what happened to them."

I agree. If I were brutally murdered, I'd like for it to be known, and possibly investigated to its full extent.