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I too was rather surprised to read Tamara's piece in Slate (the other liberal white meat), and was almost bored to tears by any observations she had to offer. I have a feeling that there is no dearth of female reporters to cover the Middle East, just not many with connections. And let's face it - in a place like the Middle East, connections matter more than almost anything else.
I was disappointed that your article didn't more thoroughly analyze some of the claims Chalabi is making in her column about the state of affairs in Iraq. It reads like talking points fed by the Bush administration, and she barely even mentions the US military presence.
Are we really to believe that the "lush forest of palm trees for which Basra was so famous vanished, an early victim of the Iran-Iraq war?" Is the "derelict refugee camp" of a hospital a "depressing testament to the institution's history" or to our complete failure to restore basic necessities to Iraqis after "shock and awe?" She really tows the line, like a mimic of all the messages coming out of the White House these days: elections are the solution to everything, don't mention the fact that we're absolutely bombing the $hit out of Iraq every day, and keep stressing that Iraqis truly dread "Baathists who haven't been caught and the terror they feel from them" rather than US.
