A Reuter reporter writes about the real war:

Last month, a Sunni Muslim politician who became a regular source was gunned down in Baghdad because he was working on writing the new constitution. His name and number are still in our list of contacts — emotionally, it’s not easy instantly to erase them.

That is just one office. Others have similar stories to tell.

The vast majority of those who have died are Iraqis, and a huge number are also innocent victims. There is no definitive record, but Iraq Body Count, a U.S.-British non-profit group, estimates 25,000 civilians were killed in just the first two years after the war began. They compiled the figure from media reports, which suggests the total is probably much higher — far from every death is reported by the media. Almost none of those mentioned above was.

Over the same period, more than 1,850 U.S. troops have also died, 1,400 of them killed in combat, and more than 13,000 have been wounded, many of them horrifically, with the loss of limbs or their sight.

Journalists have not escaped either. More than 50 reporters and media workers have died in Iraq since March 2003, making it the most dangerous place in the world for the media to work.

Reuters has had two cameramen killed, shot dead by U.S. tank or machinegun fire. Another cameraman, a freelance who worked for Reuters, was shot dead last November during a U.S. Marine offensive in Ramadi. Several other Reuters cameramen have been shot at, barely escaping alive.

Marla Ruzicka, a young American woman who ran an aid group that worked to win compensation for the innocent victims of war, and who was a constant presence among the press corps in Baghdad, was killed by a car bomb on Baghdad’s airport road.

Sometimes the horror stories come out of nowhere. I met an Iraqi Airways official in northern Iraq two weeks ago and we chatted for a while about his life and family. Last week I called to see how he was doing and he broke down on the phone.

“It’s too terrible,” he said. “I came home from work three days ago and as my son was running to say hello to me, he collapsed on the ground. I went to him and he was covered in blood.” His son, 10-year-old Mohammed, had been hit by a stray bullet. It went through his neck, severing his vertebrae, and left him paralyzed from the waist down.

One of Iraq’s leading psychiatrists, Dr Harith Hassan, believes the country may be the most psychologically damaged in the world, thanks not just to 25 years of Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime, but the past 2-1/2 years of violence.