Ummmm.... Iraq?

While all the networks have been focusing all their coverage on Israel Lebanon for a week, the Iraq war, our war, has taken a rather frightening turn.

I mentioned yesterday Casey and Khalilzad's very open criticism of the Iraqi goverrnment and Prime Minister Maliki. Around Friday sermons, Al Sistani, breaking something of a silence, came forward and issued his own urgent message.

Al-Sistani warned that if the violence continues, it "will harm the unity of the people and hinder their hopes of liberation and independence for a long time."

"I call on all those who are keen for the unity and future of this country — religious and political leaders, tribal chiefs and others — to exert maximum efforts to stop the bloodletting," al-Sistani said.

These are substantial statements, and, as all three of these are rare and represent a stronger position than previously expressed, it tells me that the senior people "on the ground" in Iraq are feeling the situation slip out from under them.

But more troubling than that is the huge upsurge in the number of refugees.

A day after the United States issued a stern warning to both Shi'ite and minority Sunni leaders to match talk with action on reining in "death squads" and "terrorists" from their respective communities, the Migration Ministry said more than 30,000 people had registered as refugees this month alone.

"We consider this to be a dangerous sign," ministry spokesman Sattar Nowruz told Reuters, acknowledging that many more people fled abroad or quietly sought refuge with relatives rather than sign up for official aid or move into state camps.

This is ethnic cleansing.

Tom Lasseter of McClatchy(Knight Ridder) who has done some phenomenal reporting from Iraq, looks at the slide in relation to the Iraqi security forces.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Despite the addition of almost 100,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi troops in the past year, American efforts to pacify central Iraq and the capital appear to be failing, challenging a central assumption behind the U.S. strategy in Iraq: that training more Iraqi security forces will allow American troops to start going home.....

Some U.S. officials acknowledge privately that their hopes that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be able to rein in Shiite militia groups and persuade Sunni insurgents to negotiate may be misplaced. Many of the government's leaders, they note, are themselves linked to Shiite or Kurdish militias or guerrilla groups.

"I keep hope up - it's misguided perhaps - that cooler heads will prevail," said an American defense official in Iraq, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "I have to believe that; otherwise all of this has been a tremendous, tremendous fiasco."

Lasseter also notes "There are about 8,000 American soldiers in Baghdad." That echoes other reporting that there are now 55,000 of the 127,000 US troops in Baghdad, but only 8,000 of them are patrolling the streets.

CNN: 38 tortured bodies found scattered around Iraq and tons of other "good news."

And, I feel obliged to mention the front page WaPo piece on Republican candidates shifting their positions on Iraq.

Republicans are making it clear to constituents they do not agree with every decision the president has made on Iraq. Then they boil the argument down to two choices: staying and fighting or conceding defeat to a vicious enemy.

The shift is subtle, but Republican lawmakers acknowledge that it is no longer tenable to say the news media are ignoring the good news in Iraq and painting an unfair picture of the war.

(Sorry for such a long post, but, despite the lack of mainstream coverage, Iraq is rapidly failing.)

Later: There's a report out of Iraq that the number of attacks on US troops just in Baghdad week to week has increased 40% from 24 a day to 34 a day over the last week.