Progressively Progressing into being Progressively Worse

Freeance!

Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.

A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors echoes the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.

And from the Washington Post -- More details on the how we have mismanaged to take a wretched place and turn it into hell:

Shiite Muslim militiamen rampaged through a Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad early Sunday morning, killing more than 50 people and discarding bodies in the streets, according to Iraqi officials and witnesses. Hours later, attackers struck back, detonating two car bombs near a Shiite mosque...

...One resident, Hazim al-Rawi, said he gathered up his family and fled the neighborhood after he saw 15 bodies outside his home.

"Some of them were tortured with drills," he said of the bodies. "Some of them were hanged by ropes."...

...Police picked up 57 bodies from the al-Jihad neighborhood, and three Interior Ministry policemen were also killed there, said Ali Hussein, a commando with the Interior Ministry who ferried bodies to Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital. Gen. Saad Mohammed al-Tamini of the Interior Ministry confirmed that more than 50 people were killed.

Some of the corpses that littered the streets lay handcuffed, pocked with bullet holes, while others were pierced with bolts and nails, witnesses said.

Iraqi officials and residents of the neighborhood identified the gunmen as members of the Mahdi Army, the powerful militia controlled by the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. In the past three days, Iraqi troops, with the support of U.S.-led forces, have raided the homes of militiamen and detained some of their leaders.

Time for Bush to tell us how swell things are and how another corner has been turned.

Time for Cheney to emphasize how "right" he was about the last throes and all that.

Or Karl Rove:

"You know it's not going to be U.S. style. It's not going to be a Midwest small-town atmosphere. It's going to be Iraq with deeply felt sectarian strains with bad guys and people with lots of guns, but it is going to be a functioning society. It already is a distinct improvement on the society that existed."

Uh-huh, how many Friedman Units will that take?

Or Joe Lieberman can do it.

Or Thomas Friedman can give us another six months to measure things -- six more months of records down at the morgue.