#IRAQ Rumours that US ambassadors has departed Baghdad are not true, says just about every diplomat you speak to.

The problem, though, is that different sources are all saying different things, and none of them trust each other. Even if no one wants this to blow up their faces, it will because miscommunication/misinformation here is destabilising, and might just cost lives. Many of them.

The idea that the US or even Iran have some grand plan for Iraq increasingly laughable. Each country has their own problems at home, and wants to score points, however minute, against the other for domestic political gain and regional legitimacy.

Iraqis will bear the brunt of however this blows up. And even if it doesn't blow up, it is driving the country to slow ruin by destabilising it and further damaging its decimated economy. And we know the type of people who exploit a socio-economic disaster.

From a journalistic perspective: getting credible information in this country, from anyone, harder than ever. In the past year events in Iraq have become more and more opaque. There's not a great deal physically happening, but it's somehow maybe marching us towards conflict.