Wouldn't the view be similar to that seen if flying over the core of many American cities?

Iraq is a third world country. Incredible advances in EVERYTHING have occured since the occupation by NATO alliances.

Advances? Oh, "advances" such as these, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:

- In 2007, the [bipartisan] Iraq Study Group described the situation in Iraq as “grave and deteriorating”.

- About four million Iraqis are internally displaced or have fled the country.

- Nearly four years after the fall of the Baathist regime, most Iraqis have limited access to food, health services, education and employment. Many also lack water and electricity.

- Iraq’s health system has collapsed. Medical services, once among the best in the Middle East, have declined to such an extent they can no longer meet the needs of the population.

- Nearly half the Iraqi population is dependent on food rations, according to World Food Programme (WFP). Food shortages have been particularly acute where military operations are under way.

- The latest report of the UN Human Rights Office paints a grim picture of the situation in Iraq. Civilians are the prime victims of the spiralling violence in the country. The report notes "extra-judicial executions, rampant and indiscriminate killings of civilians went virtually unchecked" in 2006. More than 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed and another 37,000 wounded in Iraq in 2006.

Please, if you are benefitting from the War, by reporting from the front, for instance, you need not be sensationalizing the empty swimming pools and grassless fields.

- Iraq is considered the deadliest place in the world for journalists. According to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), a record 93 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. Another 37 media support workers have been killed during the same period.

Gee, sounds like a "benefit" paradise to me. To think that writing about waterless pools and grassless fields is "sensationalizing" the situation in Iraq is BEYOND delusional...

Iraq is a third world country. Incredible advances in EVERYTHING have occured since the occupation by NATO alliances.

Please, if you are benefitting from the War, by reporting from the front, for instance, you need not be sensationalizing the empty swimming pools and grassless fields.

Oh, by the way, it is also a desert country and grass is precious, even without ravages of war

-tgimacb

Your demeaning use of the offensive term "third world country" shows how little respect you have for Iraqis. How is AB sensationalizing when simply describing the devastating effects the war has on ordinary civilians?

There's precious little time to collect the trash.

Iraq is a third world country. Incredible advances in EVERYTHING have occured since the occupation by NATO alliances.

Please, if you are benefitting from the War, by reporting from the front, for instance, you need not be sensationalizing the empty swimming pools and grassless fields.

Oh, by the way, it is also a desert country and grass is precious, even without ravages of war

I look forward to hearing more as this progresses. Anna, keep yourself safe too. You're pursuing a highly valuable mission, but do try to stay in one piece, okay?

Or are these Blackwater guys?

In an editorial sense, anyway, not so much in Baghdad.

Excellent opening article - please please more real reporting and less of the horse-race handicapping of the Democratic primary.

Looking forward to hearing more.

Great intro to what will hopefully be a recurring voice.

...was 24 hour electrical service in the capital. I guess I have to lower the bar to "regular trash pickup".

I'm looking forward to reading more. Stay safe, Ms. Badkhen.

That should have been John McCain's FIRST term. The media will, of course, be echoig how much better the Iraq is in order to assist in President McCain's re-election.

But I thought everything was "getting better" in Iraq?

I'm sure we'll be hearing this same story in the Spring of 2012, as Media Favorite John McCain's second term is winding down.