What's really going on in Baghdad right now? Check out these blogs posting from Iraq:

• Iraq Dispatches
• Today in Iraq is on top of the news.
• Baghdad Dweller
• Back to Iraq (journalist Chris Allbritton who says he'll be out in the thick of it Sunday.)

Christopher writes:

I'll be out in the thick of it for a while at least... Out with my photographer and seeing what goes on. Not sure if I'll be driving or walking. That will depend on my security guys. This is a free election? Insurgent pamphlets are being distributed that anyone walking to a polling center is a target. Several centers have already been blown up. The fear is thick enough to cut with a knife. The Iraqi security forces—with their American patrons—have tanks at the end of my street. Old Soviet T-55s, but tanks, nonetheless.

No one knows what's going to happen, whether it's the level of violence, the level of turnout or who will win. The Sistani-blessed United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) list is expected to do well, but I would be shocked if it got an absolute majority.

Yahoo has this page of updated photos from Iraq.

Baghdad Burning's last post was Thursday, and Raed in the Middle's was yesterday, but keep checking both.

A rocket hit the grounds of the U.S. embassy, killing two Americans and wounding four more.

Insurgents hit the U.S. embassy with an audacious rocket strike on Saturday that killed two Americans and wounded four, and also killed 17 Iraqis and an American soldier on the eve of Iraq's landmark election....It hit near the embassy building," embassy spokesman Bob Callahan said. "There are two dead and four who are wounded ... all Americans."

Frank Rich says Iraq is Vietnam on speed.

Iraq is Vietnam on speed - the false endings of that tragic decade re-enacted and compressed in jump cuts, a quagmire retooled for the MTV attention span. But in at least one way America is not back in Vietnam. Iraq hawks, like Vietnam hawks before them, often take the line that to criticize America's mission in Iraq is to attack the troops. That paradigm just doesn't hold.

Rich also gives an excellent review of the film Gunner Palace. Background here and here.

Television is playing a major role in getting information out to the Iraqi public about the various choices for the election.

In Sunday's election, in which few candidates' names are known, few issues have been debated in depth and many voters are too frightened to cast their ballots, television has emerged as the most effective way to communicate. In fact, in the battle for hearts and minds, the medium is more than the message; it's essentially the campaign....virtually entire blocks of commercials have been given over to the advertisements, many of them slick, emotionally charged appeals to get out the vote.

"We don't have the means to do anything else -- not rallies, not even billboards . . . because they were torn down by the other side," said Adnan Janabi, campaign manager for the Iraqiya coalition of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. "So we are using the media. We are using television as the medium of choice."

Who's watching? Most likely the rich, who can afford generators, because power is so intermittent in Iraq.

Many are skeptical the Iraqi elections are a sign of positive reform. The most insightful blog on the war in Iraq is Informed Comment by Professor Juan Cole.

Two Iraqi blogs I read are:

• Raed in the Middle

• Riverbend (Baghdad Burning)

Otherwise, there's pretty slim pickings if you're looking for blogs that don't sound like they are receiving an honorarium from the Bush Administration.

Bob Dreyfuss at TomPaine.com has a guide of who's supporting whom in the Iraqi elections. It's easy to follow. Here's a sample:

Iran. If you support Iran, vote for Ayatollah Sistani’s Shiite list, headed by Abdel Aziz Hakim, the commander of the Iran-backed paramilitary Badr Brigade. Chances are that this party will get the most votes and put Iraq on the slippery slope to the theocracy. It will harmonize with Iran, and Iran will probably move closer to the Sistani position. And don’t rule out the possibility of an Israeli-Shiite alliance to follow, in a year or two.

Saudi Arabia. Voters who support Saudi Arabia can vote for Allawi’s centrist party. The CIA-backed prime minister, running on a law-and-order platform, will probably come in second, and might even stay on as prime minister. Allawi is closely tied to the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, although Saudi-Gulf voters can also back Adnan Pachachi, the octogenarian former foreign minister. Allawi means more the same—that is, more violence, more repression, more clashes with the Shiites and the Kurds.

What does America want? Dreyfuss writes,

Voting has begun in the Iraq elections. Is it an election or a non-election?

Violence continues - 10 Iraqis and 5 soldiers were killed today. The atmosphere is hardly conducive to a high voter turnout:

A 7 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew began Friday and will stay in effect through Monday, and the government said it will close Baghdad International Airport and seal the nation's borders during the election period. Medical teams will be on alert and nationwide restrictions on traffic will be imposed from Saturday to Monday to try to deter car bombs.

Here's what is being voted on:

by TChris

Iraqi authorities announced today that they "arrested two close associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, including the chief of the terror mastermind's Baghdad operation."

Qassim Dawoud, a top security adviser, told reporters that the arrests of the al-Zarqawi lieutenants occurred in mid-January but gave few details.

The arrests did not curb the violence in Iraq.

On Thursday, [al-Zarqawi's] group posted a video on the Internet showing the murder of a candidate from Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party. The tape included a warning to Allawi personally: "You traitor, wait for the angel of death."

In light of the ongoing bloodshed, the announcement of the arrests seems unlikely to achieve its apparent goal: "bolstering public confidence in security forces in advance of Sunday's election."

Update: The bloodshed includes another downed helicopter, two days after a helicopter crash killed 31 U.S. troops. The fate of the crew in today's crash is unknown, but five U.S. troops were killed today in unrelated combat.

Javal Davis has agreed to plead guilty in his Iraqi prisoner abuse case. This is an about face because even after Sgt. Charles Graner's conviction, his lawyer said he planned to raise the "orders from above" defense for Davis.

Davis, 27, of Roselle, had been charged with conspiracy to maltreat detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, dereliction of duty for failing to protect detainees from abuse, and maltreatment of detainees. Those charges will be dismissed, and Davis - who is not seen in any of the notorious photos from the prison - will plead guilty to simple assault and rendering false official statements...

Davis' jail exposure will be reduced from a possible 8 1/2 years to 1 1/2 years, but his lawyer is hoping to get him out without jail time and to keep him in the military.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) is the first U.S. Senator to call for an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq. Shorter version: Give the Iraqis back their country and bring our troops home. Put an end to "George Bush's Vietnam."

This was too good to leave in the comments, so I'm making it a post of it's own. From Terry Kindlon:

As a Vietnam Veteran and former Marine Sergeant, and as the father of a Marine Captain (JAG Officer), I must admit that I felt like somebody kicked me in the stomach today when I heard about the CH53 going down with 30 Marines and one sailor aboard.

My company in Vietnam, Echo Company, 2d Battalion, Third Marines, lost 22 KIA in a horrific ambush on one day in December of 1968, and I still think about that every day, even though it's been almost 40 years.

Although Vietnam was a harsh, hot, insane war that killed 58,000 of my colleagues, wounded a few hundred thousand more and left untold numbers psychologically scarred, all for no good reason, it is beginning to seem that our misguided adventure in Iraq, for the soldiers and Marines serving there,is every bit as physically dangerous and probably a lot more emotionally destructive than the War in Vietnam (I'll take the boonies over urban combat any day).

Terrible news out of Iraq today. A helicopter crash is beleived to have killed 31 Marines. Five soldiers were killed in a separate incident, believed to be an attack by insurgents.