'White flight'

If there's any good news to be told in Iraq, these folks aren't telling. In a time honored response to urban blight, anybody with any money is getting out of Baghdad.

In the latest indication of the crushing hardships weighing on the lives of Iraqis, increasing portions of the middle class seem to be doing everything they can to leave the country. In the last 10 months, the state has issued new passports to 1.85 million Iraqis, 7 percent of the population and a quarter of the country's estimated middle class.

Granted they're mostly Sunnis but that doesn't say much for the "unity" government or Iraqi security. The place has become a hellhole. As one reporter put it, if they want the good news from Iraq then they have to make the streets safe enough so a TV crew isn't risking its life to cover a school opening.