The drip-drip-drip of the IV trickled slowly as he lay in the hospital bed; the funeral tunes of loved ones being played; bombs going off ominously in the distance … moaning … gunshots … sounds of death and suffering.

These scenes reverberate through the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis every day. And you won’t see them on TV.

Why aren’t these stories seen on news stations? Why is it that most news stations are hush-hush about people dying and suffering as a result of the war?

The major U.S. news stations — ABC, CBS, Fox and PBS — provide content for a Pentagon-controlled TV station in Iraq. Combined, they contribute five hours of footage a day to a program called “A Taste of Free Press.” These stations cannot afford to cover stories on Iraqi casualties extensively because such stories would contradict the Pentagon’s goal of painting the war as “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

The result of this is that many news stations report only half the story and tend to paint a glorious picture of the war.

The airwaves were saturated with the capture of Saddam Hussein, but not Maryam Nasr, a 10-year- old Iraqi who lies in the hospital with a piece of a bomb embedded in her right eye. Or the Al Rutbah children’s hospital that was bombed March 19. Or the General Surgical hospital in Nasiriyah that was bombed March 24.

Isn’t half the story always going to be biased?

On Sept. 11, our imaginations were stretched by tragedy and evil to a new realm — there were people out there that planned years in advance to kill themselves and others in the name of hatred.

Last week, President Bush stood on the podium for the Republican National Convention and made a case for himself as resolute and strong in the face of terrorism. He mentioned progress in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Bush’s words must be weighed against the circumstances and realities of the world.

Here is the other half of the story that you won’t hear extensively on ABC, CBS, Fox News or PBS.

More than 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed and about 20,000 injured. More than 1,000 U.S. soldiers have died and about 6,000 have been injured. Innocent blood has been splattered on the pages of history — one page after another of tragedies; one day after another of casualties.

It is true that Saddam Hussein, the dictator, is gone, but he has been replaced by dictatorships in many forms — lack of security, fear, tragedy and confusion. Try telling the thousands of children who stayed home from school because their friends were killed on April 21 on a school bus in Basra that they are now free to learn.

Try telling the thousands of children and vulnerable adults that have been recruited by terrorists that they are now free to think for themselves. What about the cost to the other war on terror in Afghanistan? The security situation in Afghanistan is out of control. The Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders has left Afghanistan after 24 years. It left saying that security was nonexistent.

Meanwhile, the bombs that have been dropped on Iraq have exploded in America. Over $250 billion that could have been spent on improving the lives of people in America has been spent on a war that still struggles to define its purpose. They have exploded on poor children without health care, smart students who can’t deal with rising tuition costs and talented children whose after-school programs have been cut.

No one can argue against the principles behind this war: getting rid of a dictator who has used chemical weapons and freeing the Iraqi people.

Everyone should be able to argue, without being labeled as anti-American, about circumstances surrounding Bush’s hastiness to war and the notion that the Iraqi people are better off now than they were before the war.

Babies have died, and Bush claims to have freed their mothers. Husbands have died, and he claims to have freed their wives. Brothers and sisters have died, and he claims to have freed their siblings.

Is this a glorious picture of war?