A story by Tom Lasseter of Knight-Ridder informs us (or at least leaves the impression) that all Iraqi army units with Kurdish troops don't care about Iraq at all as a unified nation and are ready to kill their Arab comrades in order to create an independent Kurdistan.

The soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Peshmerga - the Kurdish militia - and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks. Many said they wouldn't hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs, if a fight for an independent Kurdistan erupted... The Kurds have readied their troops not only because they've long yearned to establish an independent state but also because their leaders expect Iraq to disintegrate, senior leaders in the Peshmerga -
literally, "those who face death" - told Knight Ridder... The interviews with Kurdish troops, however, suggested that as the American military transfers more bases and areas of control to Iraqi units, it may be handing the nation to militias that are bent more on
advancing ethnic and religious interests than on defeating the insurgency and preserving national unity.

Iraqi officials denied that the story was representative of Iraqi troops. (Althought my gut feeling so far is to believe the reporter, I find it a little disconcerting that he has the byline on this report that criticizes his own work - needless to say he takes the opportunity to rebut the official's comments).

In October, Lasseter reported a similar story about how Shiites in the Iraqi army are only loyal to their own kind.

A week spent eating, sleeping and going on patrol with a crack unit of the Iraqi army - the 4,500-member 1st Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Division - suggests that (Bush's) strategy is in serious trouble. Instead of rising above the ethnic tension that's tearing their nation apart, the
mostly Shiite troops are preparing for, if not already fighting, a civil war against the minority Sunni population.... Day to day, the Iraqi officers mostly run their own show, carrying out most of the patrols and running checkpoints without help. Increasingly, however, they look and operate less like an Iraqi national army unit and more like a Shiite militia.

It is very hard to counter this kind of first person reporting - the best I could do was to try and find other examples of Lasseter's reporting on Iraq and see if I could detect any type of bias.

I will say that this report from an article he wrote in 2003 disturbed me:

Last Thursday, residents in At Agilia - a village north of Baghdad - said two of their farmers and five others from another village wre killed when U.S. soldiers shot them while they were watering their fields of sunflowers, tomatoes and cucumbers.

I just can't believe that U.S. soldiers would take potshots at farmers watering their crops. Even if I were to belive that this was possible, I am bothered by the uncritical reporting. At least try and get a "no comment" from the military if you believe that your countrymen are massacring innocent civilians. There don't seem to be any corroborating or conflicting reports on the internet regarding this incident. (I wonder if this type of thing counts in the quoted estimates of Iraqis killed in the war, although I couldn;t find it on iraqibodycount.net.)

In July 2004, Lasseter was embedded with U.S. troops and reported on their low morale:

Sgt. 1st Class James Tilley was on patrol on the road outside Ramadi later
that afternoon, sitting in his Humvee for an hour or two in one spot - sweating
profusely in the 105-degree heat - before moving a few hundred yards down the
road to another place.

The patrol is designed to ward off insurgents from trying to put bombs in the
road.

"A lot of times, I look at this place and wonder what have we really done.... When we first got here, we all wanted to change it and make it better, but now I don’t give a s---," he said. "What the hell am I here for?"

Staff Sgt. A.J. Dean was on the same stretch of road a couple of nights later, and his tone was similar to Tilley’s. "I don’t have any idea of what we’re trying to do out here.

I don’t know what the (goal) is, and I don’t think our commanders do either," he said. "I feel deceived personally. I don’t trust anything (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld says, and I think (Deputy Defense Secretary Paul) Wolfowitz is even dirtier."

Lasseter's reporting is extremely interesting in that there is no reason to doubt its veracity, yet when you look at polls regarding Iraqi optimism about their future or U.S. Army re-enlistment rates showing that soldiers believe in what they're doing, it can only make one question whether the reporter has an agenda and seeks out controversial opinions and reports them as universal truths.

Sure, we need someone to counter happy talk from the Government, but a little balance is in order when reporting appears in the news section and not the editorial section.