The Other Side of the Good News

Sunday on Face the Nation Senator Lindsey Graham was asked if the situation in Iraq is better or worse than 2 months ago. His reply:

I've been there three times. The security environment is much worse. The political environment is better. Iraqis are making decisions about their own future. When you kill a politician in Iraq, somebody else runs for the same office. When you blow up a recruiting station for police, other people come and join. That's the good news.They're trying to work out a constitution. They're making progress. But the insurgency is alive and well. We underestimated the viability of the insurgency. It's hurting recruiting and retention. We need better health-care benefits for the Guard and Reserves. This is the time to adjust. The war in Iraq, I think was the correct thing to do to replace the dictatorship with a democracy.

Here's the bad news:

Bound bodies of off-duty Iraqi soldiers were found along a roadside near Qaim, Iraq, a town near the Syrian border on Friday, June 10. They had left their base near Qaim two days earlier in civilian clothes aboard two minivans, headed to Baghdad for a vacation