Columnist Rosie DiManno writes in today's Toronto Star that the paper won't send its reporters there.

An excerpt:

This newspaper will not allow its reporters to venture into Iraq. Not justifiable at this time, I'm told.

Few do send reporters into the madness any more, save for a handful of news organizations that can afford elaborate security cocooning, some Arabic media agencies and risk-defying freelancers, who are extremely brave.

It's a prudent position, I suppose, given the dangers in a country wracked by insurgency, more perilous now than it was at the time of the U.S.-led invasion, largely because those coalition forces were insufficient in number to seize the day and hold the ground. Nearly all the ruin that has befallen Iraq can be attributed to a lightning-speed military campaign of unprecedented success, followed by a muddled occupation and the inexplicable absence of a post-war strategy — a disengagement step-down plan with tangible goals that could be measured and assessed.

Even against the background of elections and a recent signal that Sunnis are willing to participate in the political process, the quantifying details are all in the negative and drenched in blood: troop casualties, civilian deaths, political assassinations, suicide bombings, the dreadful theatre of hostage-parading.

I will accept, with some reservations, that the Star and other media are primarily concerned about the safety of their reporters. In my more cynical moments, I suspect the issue of insurance is also a determining factor — the astronomical cost of obtaining coverage for this particular war zone, without which nobody is going anywhere.