The Frenzy Continues, and a more self-interested, narrow and exaggerated binge of negativity would be hard to conceive.

How long can it go on without people realising that all these 'revelations' are coming out of the same larder, like meals closely but carefully spaced to swell the public's appetite? Or do the press just intend to make foie gras of us?

We should, of course, expect terms like 'previously unseen abusive techniques' to be used to justify ongoing controversy and publications of photographs, and, obviously, the photographs will be dramatic because they were staged that way. The 'techniques' (if we must use that glorifying term) may be quantitatively different, for example riding prisoners like animals is not the same as forcing them to pretend to be animals (I think). However, qualitatively they are all very similar: the sick, ill-disciplined antics of wannabe torturers, with wannabe torturer-in-chief, sicko-twisto Spc Charles Graner at the fore (this whole thing is adjectivally challenging).

When I said 'from the same larder' I didn't mean that all the photographs are coming from the same source- the Washington Post said it got materials from the Senatorial 'private viewing' (huh) of abuse tapes and pics, and they have leaked in a number of ways. What I meant was that more and more this appears a restricted phenomenon centred on a number of vicious idiots playing out their twisted fantasies.

That's why I blame the BBC: not only have they endlessly repeated the same materials, they have trumpeted every new one. They have sustained the controversy when it seemed quietened, and they've followed the herd when it seemed enlivened. They have allowed it to smother any dissenting news agenda on Iraq, despite the evidence that Iraqis themselves don't care a great deal because they are well aware that far, far worse went on under Saddam, and anyway they're busy. All this in order to cement a continuous narrative of failure in Iraq, exemplified by Paul Reynolds' analysis, where he lists this week's 'disasters' to include the 'wedding bombing' that may well have been an outright success, the fighting in Karbala and Najaf that was initiated by the US military, and the raid on Chalabi which is surely up for debate.

All this which could be teased out reasonably the Beeb cloaks in an aura of crisis. Yes, of course bad things happened, such as the assassination of Essedine Salim, but notice Reynolds was not talking about significant US or coalition casualties, or Fallujan issues, or a spreading Shia revolt, and you will see that the 'bad' week is substantially in the eye of the beholder.