On the bright spring day in April 2003 when marines helped topple Mr. Hussein's statue in Firdos Square, Baghdad, more than any other place in Iraq, was the place American commanders hoped to make a showcase for the benefits the invasion would bring.

Instead, daily life here has become a deadly lottery, a place so fraught with danger that one senior American military officer acknowledged at a briefing last month that nowhere in the area assigned to his troops could be considered safe.

"I would definitely say it's enemy territory," said Col. Stephen R. Lanza, the commander of the Fifth Brigade Combat Team, a unit of the First Cavalry Division that is responsible for patrolling a wide area of southern Baghdad with a population of 1.3 million people.

That liberal rag the New York Times.

By JOHN F. BURNS Published: January 27, 2005

Hard to see how an election can be meanigful under these cicumstances. At least in Afghanistan there weren't major proven threats against anyone who tried to vote... there were threats, but not backed up by killings the way they have been in Iraq.

After Saddam had been toppled, the US should have withdrawn, and placed 75 billion or so in a Swiss bank to be used by a legitimate government in Iraq when one came about, to be used for reconstruction. Too late now.

I wonder how much they are paying the polling station people?