The Real Iraq: Amir Taheri reports back for Commentary, and it's not BBC-approved stuff I can assure you. Of the gloom and doom, he says

'It would be hard indeed for the average interested citizen to find out on his own just how grossly this image distorts the realities of present-day Iraq.'

And his conclusion:

'Is Iraq a quagmire, a disaster, a failure? Certainly not; none of the above. Of all the adjectives used by skeptics and critics to describe todays Iraq, the only one that has a ring of truth is messy. Yes, the situation in Iraq today is messy. Births always are. Since when is that a reason to declare a baby unworthy of life?'