The Democracy Now! blurb: Dahr Jamail, one of the few independent, unembedded journalists reporting in Iraq for months, joins us in our firehouse studio to discuss the siege of Fallujah, detention of Iraqis, so-called "reconstruction" and much more.

An excerpt:

We turn now to Iraq. An article in the British newspaper the Guardian titled "This Is Our Guernica" reads:

"In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction. In the 1990s Grozny was cruelly flattened by the Russians; it still lies in ruins. This decade"s unforgettable monument to brutality and overkill is Falluja, a text-book case of how not to handle an insurgency, and a reminder that unpopular occupations will always degenerate into desperation and atrocity."

Those are the words of journalist Dahr Jamil. He spent many months in Iraq as one of the only independent, unembedded journalists there. He published his reports on a blog called DahrJamailIraq.com and is a regular guest on Democracy Now! He joins us in our firehouse studio today. ...

AMY GOODMAN: It's very good to have you with us. Can you talk more about this image of the Guernica, and what Iraq and specifically Fallujah has meant?

DAHR JAMAIL: Fallujah, which was the symbol of the resistance in Iraq to the U.S. occupation and throughout the Middle East at that point is now 70% estimated to be bombed to the ground, no water, no electricity. People who want to go back into that city have to get retina scans, all ten fingers fingerprinted, then they're issued an ID card. People inside the city are referring to it as a big jail. It is a horrendous situation, and we still have hundreds of thousands of refugees as a result. And the goal of the mission of sieging Fallujah as announced by the U.S. military was to capture the phantom Zarqawi and to bring security and stability for the elections, and what's left is a situation where Fallujah is in shambles, and the resistance has spread throughout the country.