Media Reports

The articled I read were from two different sources and from both ends of the political spectrum. On one side is the always lefty and precise New York Times and the other side is a red political blog that says in its motto is big teeth, huge ass, surprisingly reasonable. They both discuss the battle of Basra and how the Iraqi army performed.
The New York Times discusses how the Iraq army had failed and succeed in a mixed bag. Top officials of the Iraqi army at the battle of Basra deserted with other officials and many young soldiers in the army. It said that close to one thousand either refused to fight or just straight deserted their posts and would not fight. This marks another failure in the Bush's doctrine of the Iraq army being able to watch it's border and fight terrorism in its own borders. Their bias is that they are trying to say that the entire army deserted and prove that the battle was a failure but the army did win the battle.
The Donklephant's blog talks of the battle being a success and that the army is starting to turn the corner and become a comprehensive unit. While the army did have its share of misfortunes and performed poorly by our American standards they succeeded in pushing Sadar, the bad guy off their turf and hold what they had taken. He says that the Maliki government is starting to work. I believe that the blog's non-bias is a tab bit false as they did not talk of the desertions in the army and some of the failures that the army took at the battle. It shows that it is a little
red on the inside. While there is nothing wrong with that it comes through on the other side of their writing.