A long interview with a contractor in Iraq on the misreporting and malreporting of that country:

For all the complexities and risks associated with our work, (I carried two calculators, satellite and computer equipment, and a ridiculously heavy AKSU-74 submachine gun around with me most of the time) it was impossible for us to miss seeing what coalition and Iraqi forces were dealing with. Let me please emphasize that. If we simply woke up in the morning, walked outside and did our jobs, it was completely impossible to miss the profound efforts and accomplishments of coalition and Iraqi forces in securing and rebuilding the national infrastructure.

But it wasn’t impossible for the western press to miss. In fact, as I think about it, it’s quite possible they’ve actually missed the whole war. Unless reporting can be described as burying oneself in a few relatively safe places with others of one’s own kind, they have missed far more than they have covered. It is difficult for myself and many others to have respect for western journalists in Iraq because they so very rarely committed themselves to actually going out and covering what was going on.