ROBERT FISK, the normally fearless journalist who writes for the Independent of London, describes the scene in Baghdad a week before Iraq's elections in dramatic – and brutal – terms. "More and more Western reporters in Baghdad are reporting from their hotels rather than the streets of Iraq's town and cities," he notes in a Jan. 17 column. "Rarely, if ever, has a war been covered by reporters in so distant and restricted a way."

The New York Times crew lives behind a stockade, protected by armed security men. NBC's crew is forbidden to leave a hotel that has an iron grill over the door. "Yes, it is still possible to report from the street in Baghdad," Fisk notes. "But fewer and fewer of us are doing this, and there may come a time when we have to balance the worth of our reports against the risk to our lives."

(You can find a link to the entire piece at www.sfbg.com.)

Fisk's point: The media aren't telling you Iraq is in a state of utter, complete breakdown. There is no security, nobody in charge. The streets are filled with armed militiamen, loyal to various clerics or sheikhs, and armed U.S. soldiers; both sides are easily provoked to open fire. There is no effective Iraqi government and no hope that anything resembling normal elections can take place.

In this issue, we give you a rarity: some real reports from the ground in Iraq. Christian Parenti, who has spent a lot of time in Iraq recently, and Dahr Jamail, who is in Baghdad right now, paint a picture of total chaos. Even in Baghdad, bombs go off day and night. The government is shutting down cell phone service in an apparent effort to disrupt insurgents. Residents are frightened and angry – particularly at the United States, whose soldiers continue to kill civilians in large numbers.

Outside of the capital, the situation degenerates quickly. In Sadr City, the teeming Shiite slum, tens of thousands of people live on streets filled with raw sewage (Bechtel, with a $1.8 billion contract, hasn't managed to rebuild the sewers) and rotting garbage (U.S. contractors have commandeered the last few garbage trucks). Only the militias loyal to outlaw Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr keep any semblance of order; they run a makeshift justice system with makeshift jails.

This is the mess President George W. Bush has created. And it's spiraling totally out of control.

Tim Redmond