"A nightmare of nationwide chaos... "

It's one thing to deny reality within the walls of the Oval Office, but it gets pretty surreal when the US head honcho in Iraq, Paul Bremer, starts declaring that the growing wave of violence will not be tolerated by Iraq's new police and civil defence services. To quote the SMH, "witnesses described how the fledgling services fled their posts, in some cases abandoning weapons and taking TVs and computers..."

"By Sunday night US spokesmen affected an undaunted approach in the face of encircling gloom. But there was a surreal air to a press briefing by Mr Bremer at which he refused questions. As the violence escalated, he announced appointments to the new Iraqi Defence Ministry and intelligence services."

Significantly, the spiritual leader of the Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has said that the demonstrators' cause is "legitimate." So now, far from quelling violence in the town of Falluja, where US contractors were recently mutilated in the streets, the US faces the prospect of putting down a violent uprising from the 60% majority Shi'ite population - and these were supposed to be the "good" guys! It was the Sunnis and Kurds that were causing trouble earlier...

How ironic. The Iraqi people, who were urged for years to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein, may now be prepared to rise up and overthrow their US occupiers. And the Spanish, who have already pledged to withdraw, have been the main targets for the violence. And meanwhile Bush still insists he is preparing to hand over sovereignty in a couple of months:

"The message to the Iraqi citizens is, they don't have to fear that America will turn and run. And that's an important message for them to hear."

There's that word again: FEAR.