Robert Fisk Boldly Goes Where Others Dare Not Venture...
 
"For mile after mile south of Baghdad yesterday, the story was the same: empty police posts, abandoned Iraqi army and police checkpoints and a litter of burnt-out American fuel tankers and rocket-smashed police vehicles down the main highway to Hillah and Najaf. It was Afghanistan Mk2.Iraqi government officials and Western diplomats tell journalists to avoid driving out of Baghdad; now I understand why. It is dangerous. But my own fearful journey far down Highway 8 - scene of the murder of at least 15 Westerners - proved that the US-appointed Iraqi government controls little of the land south of the capital...
 
Yes, it is a shameful reflection on our invasion of Iraq - let us solemnly remember "weapons of mass destruction" - but it is, above all, a tragedy for the Iraqis. They endured the repulsive Saddam. They endured our shameful UN sanctions. They endured our invasion. And now they must endure the anarchy we call freedom...
 
Sadr's militia - which the US army promised to "destroy" last April - guards the old city, the main roads to the mosque and the entrance to the great Shrine of the Imam Ali...
 
US forces are under so many daily guerrilla attacks that they cannot move by daylight along Highway 8 or, indeed, west of Baghdad through Falujah or Ramadi. Across Iraq, their helicopters can fly no higher than 100 metres for fear of rocket attack...
 
That the "muqawama" - the resistance - controls so many hundreds of square miles around Baghdad should be no great surprise. The new US-appointed government has neither the police nor the soldiers to retake the land. They announce martial laws and telephone tapping and bans on demonstrations and a new intelligence service -- but have neither the manpower nor the ability to turn these institutions into anything more than propaganda dreams for foreign journalists and a population that desperately craves security."
 
More here.