The quagmire deepens....

The depths to which Iraq has sunk since our illegal invasion are ever more harrowing. According to a new report in today's San Francisco Chronicle, Iraqis are fleeing Baghdad in droves to escape the rampant murders taking place every hour of every day with no end in sight.

Are these people better off now than when Saddam was in power?

"With only six hours of electricity a day and shortages of essentials such as gasoline, Iraqis exchange horror stories of unspeakable violence, which cannot be independently confirmed and might or might not be true.

Someone said a Sunni woman was shot in Amariya this week because she was driving. Someone else said a neighbor who had disappeared last month died of a heart attack in captivity. Women share these stories during short, rare trips to the few grocery shops that are still open.

'Everybody is scared,' said one woman in Amariya. 'No one can protect us.'"

Not that anyone could have seen this coming before we invaded, right? Geez.