Blogger and MSNBC combat correspondent Kevin Sites has returned to assignment in Iraq after a short break home in the US. A year ago last Friday, the famous statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad was toppled; Kevin has posted a new essay about the state of Iraq since then.
But in light of the multiple hostage situations in Iraq right now, I want to mention one thing that he does not. This also marks the one year anniversary of his capture and subsequent release by Iraqi Fedayeen soldiers. We're glad that this story ended with Kevin free and unharmed. Snip from his latest post:
How did things turn so bad so quickly–in which a scattered insurgency gains broader support and the coalition Shiite alliance begins to crack? Some critics say it's a combination of a year of mismanagement by the Coalition Provisional Authority in which the lives of most Iraqis have not improved much since the reign of Saddam Hussein and the hardball tactics of occupation military forces that are alienating the people they were intending to help.
One member of a Ramadi-based Sunni insurgent cell who calls himself "Continuous Jihad" says the Coalition hasn't delivered on anything. "They break into houses in the middle of the night and arrest innocent people," he says, "and they've given us less then we had under Saddam. People are jobless, they distort our religion, and they're taking our oil and living in Saddam's palaces. Nothing has changed. They've become like him, yet they pretend they're here to help us."
Link to "Toppled", blog post from Iraq by Kevin Sites, Link to discussion forum.
