Iraq's Told Story

(Well, it's not Iraq's Untold Story because... it's told)

On A20, U.S. Forces Give Iraqis Full Control of Najaf:

NAJAF, Iraq, Sept. 6 -- The U.S. military pulled hundreds of troops out of the southern city of Najaf on Tuesday, transferring security duties to Iraqi forces and sticking to a schedule that the United States hopes will allow the withdrawal of tens of thousands of its forces by early spring....

This is the Washington Post, so most of the story resumes our regularly scheduled program of conflict, including the kidnapping of the new governor of Ramadi.

One detail:

Najaf has been the scene of relatively few insurgent attacks. In August 2004, U.S. and Iraqi forces here launched a major assault to disarm the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to the Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr that had staged two uprisings against the U.S. military presence in Iraq. The assault claimed dozens of lives from both sides and ended only when Iraq's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, ordered Sadr to rein in his fighters.

Dozens of lives from both sides? Correct me if I'm wrong, but in many if not most of these engagements, the outcome is usually much higher casualties for the enemy.

The subhed also caught my eye: Move Is Seen as Step Toward Bigger Pullout, which reflects the lede. I don't want to make too much out of the choices made in a short dispatch--maybe 17 grafs-- but here and elsewhere in the daily coverage, you'll find relatively little interest in telling a story about the hopes of a liberated Iraq. Now it's all about the pullout.

The exception possibly being Anthony Shadid's recent three-part series. Yeah, gotta read that.