Maybe this is why

Maybe this is why the Bush/Cheney cabal has decided to Scale Back Talk of Iraq Progress.

• Rebuilt Iraq Projects Found Crumbling

  In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.
  
  The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.
  
  The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

• Or maybe this
  Car bomb kills 60 near Iraqi Shi'ite shrine

  KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed 60 people and wounded 170 near one of Iraq's most revered Shi'ite Muslim shrines on Saturday, in an attack likely to inflame sectarian tensions.

• Or this:
  U.S. says nine troops killed in Iraq over two days

  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military said nine soldiers had been killed in Iraq on Friday and Saturday.
  
  Four were killed by roadside bombs in separate attacks south and southeast of Baghdad on Saturday, the military said in a statement.
  
  Three soldiers and two Marines were killed on Friday in combat in western Anbar Province, it said.
  
  April has been the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers in Iraq this year. The latest deaths raise to nearly 100 the number of U.S. soldiers killed this month.

I can see why they might not want to talk about "progress". Of course very few are buying their spin these days anyway.