Iraq Deteriorates

From Richard Dalton:

Their message is blunt: "The humanitarian situation (in Iraq) is steadily worsening and it is affecting, directly or indirectly, all Iraqis." The rest of the eight-page report, prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross cites examples of how Iraqi civilian life is not just bad but deteriorating.

Couple that with the tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of Iraqi Shia who braved assassination while traveling to Najaf for a thunderous get-out-of-Iraq rally and you wonder how George W. Bush gets up every morning, looks in the mirror and says, "We're in Iraq to help the people establish a stable democracy." Well, the survivors (and those who haven't emigrated to relative safety) probably aren't thinking of that while drinking polluted water (when available), searching for gasoline for their vehicles (in a nation with the second-largest known oil reserves), and trying to deal with dead bodies lying in their streets.

And it has only cost $410 billion (so far, with another $100 billion in the pipeline) to create this stable democracy. Shouldn't we feel proud?

Briefs

• NBC's Todd faulted Democrats for not anticipating "conservative media machine's" falsehoods

• A lawyer for the Republican National Committee told congressional staff members that the RNC is missing at least four years' worth of e-mail from White House senior adviser Karl Rove that is being sought as part of investigations into the Bush administration, according to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
• The briefing received by the Committee raises serious concerns about the White House compliance with the Presidential Records Act, which requires that the President "take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are maintained as Presidential records."
• The White House said that missing e-mail messages sent on Republican Party accounts may include some relating to the firing of eight United States attorneys.