Or rather, we have reduced Iraq to chaotic, bloody ruins where diseases – like bird flu, terrorism and religious extremism – can grow into mass epidemics that will blow back into our faces like a hurricane wind.

Excerpt: Officials in northern Iraq said on Tuesday they were treating 12 patients suspected of having bird flu as a World Health Organization (WHO) team prepared to travel to the area to give urgent assistance. Iraq's health minister said on Monday the country feared it had its first human bird flu victim after preliminary test results showed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl who died two weeks ago had the H5N1 virus....

So far there have been no confirmed cases among poultry in Iraq, but local officials say the country's porous frontiers, a raging insurgency and general chaos in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion will make it hard to control any epidemic.