their priorities with our money

In Baghdad, "soft cleansing" is taking place in a number of mixed neighborhoods, with targeted assassinations scaring Sunnis out of some, and Shiites out of others. In the south, Shiite militias, not the new army and police, are the major power.

While there is still hope that Iraq can avoid going all the way down the same tragic road that ripped apart Lebanon, a growing number of political leaders and analysts are acknowledging that a de facto state of civil war is already here.

In the Sunni and Shiite neighborhood of Horriya, on the western edge of Baghdad, three Shiite barbers have been killed this month by Sunni religious extremists who think it's sinful to cut men's beards. After notes were slipped under their doors that they could be next, at least half a dozen barber shops have closed, and the rest have prominently posted signs that will no longer shave beards.

In largely Sunni neighborhoods like Dora and Al Ghaziliya, Shiite residents have received written death threats to leave the area. Sunnis in Shiite neighborhoods say they've received similar threats from the Badr Brigade, a militia loyal to the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two big Shiite parties that now dominate the government.

A Shiite doctor in Dora, who asked that his name not be used, says he's looking for a new home since a note was slipped under his door last month. "All the dirty Shiites out of Iraq, or face death!" it warned, which brought back memories of his brother, killed for political activity by the Hussein regime in the early 1990s.
He says at least 15 Shiites in Dora have been killed in the last month. "We wake up with hope every day, but when the sun goes down, things are worse for us. I walk with death just because I'm a Shiite."

A Sunni women in the Latifiyah neighborhood, whose husband was a government official under Hussein and was assassinated earlier this year, points to the cluster of bullet holes in her front gate and the front window of her living room. "We know the Badr Brigade has a list of Sunnis they want to kill and we're on it. They want us out of this house. And the police are working with them."

Such breakdowns along confessional or ideological lines are the hallmarks of civil war and speak to why the drafters of Iraq's constitution have run up against so many problems. THEY GOT US INTO THIS,MEANWHILE CUTTING FUNDS FOR A NEEDED RAISE IN THE LEVEES AROUND NEW ORLEANS. WHY?? Stay tuned for the answer.