Eventually, we can impose Wonder Bread along with neocon-style democracy. We'll teach these backward heathens not to eat good fresh bread! Yikes! They need the gummy soft stuff we all grew up on.

to see how Iraqis really live. They seem almost forgotten by much of the world. Yet there they are still, just trying to get by.

Years from now when this Iraq war is just paragraphs in the history books, will we finally be wise enough to realize it was our failure to restore basic services like electricity that led to our loss?

Simplistic, but true.

Anna, I continue to appreciate your dispatches. They are moving and maddening at the same time. And I realize that you are not really in a position to answer the question posed in the subject line, but I put it out there as a sort of plea for more reporting.

Iraq's oil industry is not operating at full capacity, I realize, but it is still pumping oil, which is selling at more than twice what it was selling at in 2003. The fact that the "Iraqi government" such as it is, still cannot provide basic services given - presumably - billions in oil revenue appears to signify widespread corruption and outright stealing. It seems like the Bush administration has adopted a kind of learned helplessness on this issue instead of really pressing the Iraq government to clean up its act. It's a disgrace.

As only the fourth reader to post on this article, I realize I'm in a minority in my interest here. But I'd love to see Salon put into stories about Iraq about 20% of the "ink" that's put into the Presidential election. This terrible conflict is going to haunt us for decades and has destroyed Iraq -- we deserve to be better informed.

But I can't believe that Mrs. Badkhen continues to endanger our Troops (TM) by publishing the location of the baker they use to supply breakfast.

Snark aside, I think it is really important to provide readers outside Iraq with a good picture of day to day life, even if glimpsed through the periscope of a Bradley. The image of students stepping around pools of raw sewage is a powerful one, and indicative of the long path yet ahead for Iraq. I hope sincerely that things actually begin to improve. Iraqis deserve better than what they have gotten the past seven years, and no level of support for our troops will help to fix the deep, deep problems which plague the infrastructure. Thank you for the very human look at the situation.