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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Funny you should mention this, because opinionjournal has been posting all of the progress in Iraq to counter-balance the mainstream media: You can read it here if you are interested: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005610

It certainly appears that there are many more press releases in Iraq than there were before we invaded, and that's surely a good thing.

Did you read the CSIS report that I referred to and which your article mentioned in the first paragraph? It's bad news. Here's a recap of the five main areas they looked at:

• Security continues to be the predominant issue, hampering reconstruction efforts on all other fronts. Crime is rampant, and, along with fears of bombings, militias’ roadblocks, banditry on the highways, and regular kidnappings, continues to impact Iraqis’ ability to go about their daily lives with any semblance of normalcy. Iraqis are well disposed toward their own security forces and clearly want them to play the leading role in bringing stability to the country, but those forces are still not up to the task. Iraqis have little confidence in U.S. and other international forces.
  
• Governance and Participation is a largely negative picture, despite a slight boost in optimism related to the June 28 transfer of sovereignty. Iraqis are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the January elections but otherwise remain starkly pessimistic about governance and participation issues. Most are willing to give their government a chance, although they continue to question its credibility. Corruption is rampant, and there are worrisome trends in terms of protection of women’s and minority rights and religious freedom. Kurds showed surprisingly negative results on governance; they are frustrated with their own political parties and wary about protection of Kurdish interests by a new Iraqi government. U.S. efforts have been overly focused on national level politics and central government institutions. Efforts to develop local and regional political bodies have not been adequately backed up by the resources and technical assistance that would meaningfully empower decentralized governance institutions.
  
• The continuing lack of Economic Opportunity and high levels of unemployment impact reconstruction in other sectors, fueling security problems and leading to entrenched frustration and anger at the occupying forces. Iraq’s perceived wealth sustains Iraqis’ positive view of the future, but security problems continue to undermine oil production and export. Unemployment continues to overshadow the U.S.-driven macroeconomic reform efforts and salary increases for Iraq’s civil servants. Iraqis currently have a negative view of job availability, and those who choose to work for foreign companies or in Iraq’s security forces face serious security risks.
  
• Iraqis remain unhappy with the level of Services they are receiving. The lack of sufficient electricity in major cities continues to undermine public confidence, fueling worrisome discontent in cities like Falluja and Mosul, which were favored under Saddam and now receive considerably less power than in prewar days. Sewage systems are worse than they were under Saddam, causing spillover health and environmental problems. There is a wide gap between the level of services actually being provided (at least, according to U.S. government sources) and Iraqis’ perception that services are inadequate.
  
• Social Well-Being has seen significant improvement in terms of access to education and health care, although there has been a downward trend in recent months. There was an initial boost in the education sector with thousands of schools rebuilt and children returning to school, but this has been countered in recent months by Iraqi frustration at the lack of longer-term, sustainable efforts in the education sector. There are signs that Iraqi children continue to drop out of school at high rates in order to work and help supplement the family income. The health care sector has suffered due to Iraq’s security problems and inadequate basic services. Militias’ roadblocks and highway banditry hinder access to and supplies for medical care, and the lack of a functioning sewage system has led to an increase in water-borne diseases.

Oh, and you'll also be interested to note, I'm sure, that the media is not making things look worse than they are:

• Despite consistent criticism that the media portrays the situation in Iraq in an overly negative light, the media has not been significantly more negative than other sources of information on the issues of security, governance and participation, and economic opportunity. The media has been regularly more negative than other sources about services and social well-being issues. But in those areas, the media is
  arguably more balanced than public sources, in that it tends to include descriptions of the impact of security and reports of the Iraqi perspective.

(Not that this is any reason for conservatives to stop trying to "counter-balance" a depressing but accurate picture of things.)