Cenk Uygur: You’re not Katie Couric. I don’t know if you know this, but you’re not. Or you’re not John McCain. So you don’t get the fancy lists around you with a hundred, or two hundred, or a thousand soldiers that walk you through a market, and have eight Chinook helicopters and Apache helicopters protecting you, and then give you a false sense of what’s happening in Baghdad, “Look at that, “They’re selling vegetables and fruits here so everything must be okay.” You’re an actual working journalist who’s in Baghdad the whole time. So from that perspective, do you get a completely different view of Baghdad than the journalists who come in for a brief period of time, or the Congressman and Senators who come in for a brief period of time? And what is that perspective on the ground?

Babak Dehghanpisheh: It’s absolutely different. I think these Congressional delegations that come in, and I can’t really say what the other journalists who come in are doing, but at least the itineraries of a lot of these Congressional delegations which I’ve seen, and I’ve seen them in Baghdad press conferences, and so on, is not at all representative of what’s going on in the city, or even the country at large, from my experience. I mean, they, they basically -- it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say they basically get a dog and pony show, go out to a few bases, they’re guarded the whole time, they are not independently roaming around the country and talking and hearing independent voices. So while they may see statistics, and hear about particular conditions on the ground that have improved in certain areas, I don’t think the feed back from any of those congressional delegations can be taken as really any sort of substantial or meaningful feedback.

Cenk Uygur: Babak, I've got to ask you this, you know, because I can’t get a good sense of it sitting here in Los Angeles. Obviously you’re in Baghdad and you have a thousand times better perspective on it. As a journalist, can you walk outside of the green zone, as an American, and just stroll around the city and come back? Would you be fine? Or what would happen to you if you weren’t fine?

Babak Dehghanpisheh: Well without getting too much into our own security arrangements, I think most Westerners on the ground here, who are civilians, who are not affiliated with the military, let’s say journalists, or aid workers and so on, realize that it would be probably, you know, at the very least, you’re probably going to get kidnapped shortly if you go walking around Baghdad, if not getting caught up in other some kinds of violence, or getting shot at. You know, I don’t know of any Westerners who go strolling around the streets of Baghdad, and unless you do have what you mentioned; a convoy of Humvees or choppers to back you up for protection. Then I think it would be suicidal.

Cenk Uygur: You think it would be suicidal? So, if you’re a Westerner, the idea of going out for a stroll in Baghdad, you’re calling it suicidal. Your chances of getting killed or kidnapped is incredibly high?

Babak Dehghanpisheh: I would say it’s a hundred percent.