Cursur: Media Patrol - March 30, 2005

As Iraq's new National Assembly "degenerated into farce and chaos," then went into secret session, before failing again to name a government, "televisions showing the proceedings abruptly switched to an Iraqi singer belting out 'My Homeland, My Homeland.'" Juan Cole has more on the 'parliament fiasco.'

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"If this is how Washington treats Italy ..." Jeremy Scahill follows up on Naomi Klein's "Democracy Now!" discussion of her interview with Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who said that the car she was in wasn't on the airport road and was fired on from behind.

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'Degrees of Not Knowing' Reviewing recent books about Iraq that provide various accounts of "what the Coalition thinks it is doing," Rory Stewart argues that "critics are no better informed than members of the administration" -- and that even "Baghdad intellectuals don't understand the status of ... the most senior Shia clerics."