The number “...paints a much grimmer picture of the challenge facing the Iraqi authorities and their British and American backers as elections loom in four weeks.”"

I do very well in comprehension thanks. If you'd just take your ideological blinders off for a moment, the facts on the ground do paint a much grimmer picture of the challenge facing the Iraqi authorities....etc. No less an authority than the head of Iraqi authorities is saying the same thing. My friends in Iraq, and those just back from there say the same thing. Enuf said.

This is a dumb, inflammatory, and biased article. Sorry, just calling a spade a spade. The whole point of it, if you paid attention in reading comprehension lessons:

The number "...paints a much grimmer picture of the challenge facing the Iraqi authorities and their British and American backers as elections loom in four weeks."

That's all they are trying to do, paint a grim picture, NOT report actual events.

It seems to me the Iraqi authority has to look within:
"The head of the Baghdad division of the Iraqi National Guard admitted that his paramilitary police force had been infiltrated by people who are leaking information to the guerrillas. "

“People are fed up after two years without improvement,” he said. “People are fed up with no security, no electricity, people feel they have to do something."

Fed up with whom? We're fixing their utilities, the insurgents are blowing them up? How about they stand up for their own security, turn in the insurgents, support the coalition? Do they really think they'll be any better off with the insurgents protecting their rights?

"The army (dissolved by the American occupation authority) was hundreds of thousands. You’d expect some veterans would join with their relatives,..."
(Note: "American Occupation" substituted for "Coalition")

Precisely why the former army of Saddam was largely fired. They cannot be trusted. Many should be in jail, but the bleeding hearts had to set them free...

“I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people,” General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, director of Iraq’s new intelligence services, said.

Is that a selective bit of editing on your part?

"General Shahwani said that there were at least 40,000 hardcore fighters attacking US and Iraqi troops, with the bulk made up of part-time guerrillas and volunteers providing logistical support, information, shelter and money."

40,000, not 200,000? How are we outnumbered? What are their weapons, capabilities?

If Shahwani knows so much about the insurgency, then why does he have such a difficult time in assiting their capture?

When has the U.S. ever guaranteed any one's safety, including here in the U.S.?

The British Times?!?! Now there's a reliable source of information! It's not just the link that doesn;t work. All too many (outside Iraq)seem to want a free Iraq to work either.

Iraqi insurgents now outnumber coalition forces -
The head of intelligence services in Baghdad says that there are more than 200,000 fighters

The link above doesn't seem to want to work, so you'll have to cut and paste the entire URL to your browser.

I hope you'll share the full report of your poll. Methodology, weighting parameters, standard deviations, that kind of thing.