Slow And Steady

The intense heat, and dust gives the Baghdad skyline a ghostly look to it.

Reconstruction continues in Iraq. While not wanting to use the cliché, it truly is two steps forward, one step back. The ‘one step back’ is normally quite sensational and garners the vast majority of media attention; a bomb in a marketplace, a kidnapping of an official. The forward steps are the slow, but meaningful increments of progress; often not terribly newsworthy and subsequently going unnoticed by the international audience. There are however, children walking through the streets to school, public water and sewage, Internet service, traffic lights being adhered to, and most importantly smiles and laughter. Don’t count Iraq out just yet. There's a long, long way to go; years even decades, but there is visible progress. You can see it everyday, even through the haze.