Update on the Baghdad "crackdown"

Is this just more of a realist tone, or have things gotten so they can no longer spin it positive? (Maybe it's just because the reporters in the green zone have Iraqis on staff who are in Baghdad actually telling them what's going on in the streets.)

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military issued a sober assessment Tuesday of the Baghdad security crackdown, saying violence had decreased slightly but not to "the degree we would like to see" in the two weeks since 75,000 Iraqi and American troops flooded the capital.

Also, updating Afghanistan....

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Afghanistan on Wednesday to show support for President Hamid Karzai, whose popularity has slumped as he struggles to stem a surge in Taliban violence......

Two years ago, Afghanistan was held up as a U.S. foreign policy success story following Karzai's election triumph.

But anti-U.S., anti-Karzai riots rocked Kabul earlier this month and violence in Afghanistan, especially in the south, is at its worst since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001, with more than 1,100 people killed since January.

Also, the rift between Afghanistan and Pakistan is growing, and the mentions of Condi Rice praising Musharraf for his democracy have been stripped from earlier versions of these articles.