The Hunt For Good News

Oh, there it is. Buried three stories deep, hugging the bottom of page 3 in today's LATimes:

Top Zarqawi Aide Reportedly Died in U.S.-Led Assault on Fallouja
BAGHDAD — A speaker claiming to be Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of an Al Qaeda-linked extremist group in Iraq, said in a statement heard Thursday over the Internet that one of his top lieutenants was killed last year in the U.S.-led assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallouja.

The speaker said Omar Hadid, who was in his 30s, was killed in November when U.S. and Iraqi forces recaptured the city. It was the first public report by the insurgents that Hadid was dead. It has been widely believed that Hadid fled the city as it was being attacked.

To get to this smidgen of good news, I waded through less bad news on Iraq than usual, because the inauguration dominated page one coverage. Still, there was a story on a bombing in Afghanistan, one on hostages in Iraq, and on on raids in Mosul and five British troops injured.

Every day, there's good news out of Iraq. Mostly about bad guys being killed, which we never read about, but also about reconstruction, excitement over the upcoming vote, a growing economy, the spread of freedom ... but where is it?

Last week, LAT ran a story on Iraqi reaction to the 10-year prison sentence for the Abu Ghraib ring-leader -- it was just three quotes from people who thought it was too little. Anyone who believes that's an accurate representation of Iraqi opinion might want to look into a bridge that's for sale in Brooklyn.