NYTimes: Good news in Iraq

Of course, they put it 14 paragraphs down, in an article opening with Zarqawi's tape attacking democracy: ""We have declared an all-out war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said the speaker, identified on the tape as Mr. Zarqawi. "Still:

Ambassador John D. Negroponte and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American military commander here....said...stepped-up offensives across the so-called Sunni Triangle areas south, west and north of Baghdad...have resulted, apart from the crushing of the resistance in Falluja and the arrest of hundreds of rebels there, in the capture during the past two months of more than 1,000 suspected insurgents - about 100 of them in raids during this weekend alone...

Plenty of problems, but not all the news is bad.

paste: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/international/middleeast/24iraq.html

UPDATE: Wm. Safire addresses this very thing (Burying the lede/lead/important thing):

2. Never look for the story in the lede. Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there.

Of course, he placed this insight well before halfway thru the column.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/opinion/24safire1.html