Let's be honest. It's painful listening to the news right now. It's not just our imaginations, things are getting worse, and this recent report from the BBC provides even more damning evidence that we're on a slippery slope in Iraq.

Hundreds of bodies showing signs of torture or execution arrive at the Baghdad mortuary each month, a senior UN official has told the BBC.

John Pace, until recently UN human rights chief in Iraq, told the BBC News website that up to 75% of the corpses showed signs of extrajudicial death.

Mr Pace blamed an "endemic" breakdown of security for increasing violence."Anyone with a gun who is reasonably well organised can do whatever they want with impunity," he said.

...But Mr Pace played down suggestions that Iraq was heading towards civil war, blaming a political vacuum and the collapse of law and order - rather than a generalised Shia-Sunni split - for the escalating violence.

The report goes on to site fears that Shia death-squads are roaming Iraq with semi-official approval by the Iraqi government.

I'm starting to wonder, at what point does sectarian violence beget a pogrom? And if this is what is happening in Iraq, does the US have any hope of stopping it before it claims more victims?