You know these guys, they love a good rumor.
My thoughts exactly!

Where's the IO to counter these rumors, if they're not true? I tend to believe that they are, but that's probably baggage from my "Thoughts on a possible surge" thread.

The point I was getting at was that our "read" of these media reports are not at stake here. To us, it may just be hyped rumor, but we have the luxury of sitting back and considering other evidence.

For the Sunni sitting in the tea shop or getting his hair cut, perhaps these juicy media reports make him suck his teeth and think See...See...That Maliki is a no-good Sadr puppet. That Sunni sipping on tea may just be one man, but what about the other twenty men in the same shop? What about their families?

I think all of these juicy tidbits hurt the government in more ways than we can imagine, because they erode the faith of the man-on-the-street. They chip away at any notion that the government can uphold the rule of law and truly embrace democratic principles, and make it increasingly difficult for the coalition to deliver its own IO messages and bring the insurgency to heal.