MSNBC - Crumbling at the seams in Iraq

MSNBC - Crumbling at the seams in Iraq:

"The driver explained that he lived in Mahmoudiya, but came every day to Baghdad to work the cab, which he used for his 'real job.'

'And what's that?'

'I specialize in killing women,' he said.

The atmosphere in the car turned stifling and tense, as if an inconsonant note had been played on an unseen piano.

'I kill whores, women who go to the Green Zone and have sex with the Americans,' the driver added as a justification."...

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"On election day Iraqis will select 275 members of parliament, who will then have the duty of writing a permanent constitution, answering fundamental and volatile questions including the role of Islam in the state and, critically, the power of the central government over the regional provinces — the equivalent in American history to the framers debate about states’ rights vs. national supremacy.

Once the constitution is written and ratified in a national referendum, new elections are scheduled to be held at the end of 2005 based on the document."

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