Iraq Update

Although the New York Times gives you a whole article to peruse, I think I can get a pretty good idea how Iraq is doing by looking at the State Department Picture supplied with the story:

That's a bullet proof vest our Secretary of State is wearing. While she's surrounded by American Military Personnel. At the airport we secured more than two years ago.

“What the American people see on their television screens is the struggle,” [Sec. of State Rice] said. “It is harder to show the political process that is going on at local levels, at provincial levels and indeed at the national level.” Iraqis, she said, are “making progress.”

Well, I'll tell you one thing: The American people understand that all the talk of progress in the world doesn't mean shit if the U.S. Secretary of State has to fly in on a secret airplane for a suprise visit and wear a bullet proof vest when outdoors.

Secretary Rice's trip "began inauspiciously when the military transport plane that brought her to Baghdad was forced to circle the city for about 40 minutes because of what a State Department spokesman later said was either mortar fire or rockets at the airport."

"From the airport in Baghdad, Ms. Rice flew by military helicopter to the heavily fortified American-controlled Green Zone, bypassing the dangerous, explosives-strewn airport highway into the city."

That's progress, right?

Condoleezza Rice War in Iraq Bagdad
Photo Credit: U.S. State Department