IRAQ IS LIKE RASHOMON

It's really hard to tell what the truth is. Here's reporting about the same Iraqi official from two different sources:

LA Times:

Maj. Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, commander of the Iraqi police in Basra, said he did not expect an escalation in violence because Iraqi forces have already been in control of the city since Britain started its pullout in September.Khalaf said he felt confident because the warring factions had disavowed violence and were preparing for this year to be "a year of stabilization and reconstruction." "There are no militias controlling the streets of Basra any more," Khalaf said. "Now, only the law and security forces have control over the streets."

Guardian:

Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. "They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world," he said in an in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV.

But in the film, to be broadcast on the Guardian Unlimited website and ITV News, Khalaf lists a catalogue of failings, saying:

· Basra has become so lawless that in the last three months 45 women have been killed for being "immoral" because they were not fully covered or because they may have given birth outside wedlock;

· The British unintentionally rearmed Shia militias by failing to recognise that Iraqi troops were loyal to more than one authority;

· Shia militia are better armed than his men and control Iraq's main port.