Sunday, June 18, 2006

Life is Hell In Baghdad

About a year ago when my friend's conservative mother-in-law was visiting we got into a slightly heated discussion about Iraq. When I suggested that life in Iraq was worse now than it was before the war she gasped in disbelief that I could say such a thing. "Worse than under the evil dictator Saddam Hussein?! Never!"

I wonder what she would think if she read this article on Washingtonpost.com and the memo from the US Embassy in Iraq that they obtained:

Hours before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees. This cable, marked "sensitive" and obtained by The Washington Post, outlines in spare prose the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government.
You can link to the PDF of the memo here. The conditions for the poor Iraqi employees are horrific.

Another thing to raise my blood pressure this morning. I am actually turning off the computer right now and heading to the dog park.
hat tip: Firedoglake, Digby

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