Attacks on troops in Iraq continue

There are 22 million people living in Iraq today. All it takes is but one percent of those charged with a lethal combination of religious and nationalist fervor to take up arms and you have an army of 220,000 for our forces to deal with. Iraq is beginning to look like the West Bank and the Gaza strip. We are cascading headlong into a perpetual cycle of mutual violence. The word "quagmire" comes to mind.

And then there are stories like this to only make matters worse:

Iraq's bad water brings disease, alarms relief workers

GREG BARRETT GANNETT NEWS SERVICE The Olympian Online

Iraq's water infrastructure largely survived the 15,000 bombs of war, but it buckled under the crazed aftermath.

Looting, lawlessness and unreliable electricity have handicapped or crippled hundreds of water lines, sewage treatment plants, pumping stations, and depleted supply warehouses.

In the southern port city of Basra, where ground water is naturally salty and brackish and water wells are useless, humanitarian organizations began reporting an alarming shortage in potable water as far back as April.

Yet, on May 15, the newly arrived chief of the U.S.-led civilian authority described Basra's water quality as good. "Better than it has been in years," boasted Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

The pronouncement was in stark contrast with comments from World Health Organization and UNICEF officials who at that moment were warning of waterborne epidemics in Iraq's second-largest city.

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