SALAM PAX UPDATE: Will Femia has a fairly lengthy piece on Salam and his weblog, saying that Peter Arnett, etc., are being scooped, and out-written.

Meanwhile, Paul Boutin thinks that he’s “probably” for real, and has done some digging. Jason Kottke has more, too.

These are very interesting posts, but the question isn’t so much is Salam real, or in Baghdad. It’s whether he’s really an ordinary Iraqi as he claims, or something else (conceivably, on either side). And that’s much harder to know. That’s the issue with intelligence — facts are easier to figure out than motivations, but motivations usually matter as much as discernable facts.

UPDATE: Here’s more from Gotham.