Good news from the US Army

Things may not be going as well in Iraq as we would like, but the US Army's NASCAR entry came in fourth this weekend -- the best finish so far . USA! USA!

Wonderful.

Article Exclusive: Thousands cross Syrian border to
fight for Iraq Despite American warnings, in the last few days Damascus has expedited the passage of volunteers wishing to join the Iraqis in their war against the Americans. Thousands of volunteers, most of them Syrians, are thronging to the Mosul and Kirkuk regions in north Iraq.

It started with a few dozen volunteers, mostly from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Damascus allowed them to cross the border to Iraq at the official border passes in its control. This went on until a missile from an American plane hit one of the buses of volunteers in Iraq, killing five passengers.

A few days ago, American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Damascus of transferring weapons to Iraq, but did not mention the volunteers. On Monday the United States warned Syria and Iran again not to cooperate with terrorism and with Saddam Hussein's regime.

Rumsfeld: Evil, lying bastard.

The Village Voice: Nation: James Ridgeway's War Log: Rumsfeld's Dealings With Saddam Researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies have been combing documents from the period, and they recently discovered Rumsfeld was errand boy, and perhaps participant, in a behind-the-scenes oil deal which would make Perle, in his current predicament, look like a piker.

It worked like this: George Schultz was Reagan's secretary of state. Reagan had recruited him from the uppermost ranks of the Bechtel Corp, the huge international engineering and construction company. The documents suggest that behind the scenes Schultz was pushing an oil pipeline from Iraq across Jordan to the port of Aqaba. Bechtel would construct it. According to IPS, documents show that Schultz prepped Rumsfeld for his meetings with Saddam. At the time, Saddam was gassing the Kurds, and if the U.S. were to come down against him on that score, then the pipeline most certainly would go down the drain. Beginning with Rumsfeld, Reagan top officials hoping to make the deal kissed Saddam's ass, sidestepping the poison-gas issue, and snuggling up with the man they now say is a vile dictator. In the end, Saddam turned down the pipeline.

From then on, the U.S. government primly rewrote the history of our earlier dealings with Saddam so much that Rumsfeld and the other Bush cronies can say this second Persian Gulf war has nothing to do with oil. They say it is meant solely to remove the dictator and save the Iraqi people from the horrors of weapons of mass destruction, gas being the main one, even though the U.S. never cared about poison gas when it stoop to make money off an oil pipeline. And guess what? Bechtel is one of the few companies asked to play a key role in the reconstruction of Iraq after the war.

Looting, killing and raping -- by twisting their words they call it "empire"; and wherever they have created a wilderness they call it "peace" -- Tacitus.

we can only hope that our occupation of Iraq goes as well as the one in Afghanistan.

News Posters apparently endorsed by one of America's most wanted fugitives, Mullah Mohammed Omar, have appeared in Afghanistan calling for renewed holy war, providing a further sign that the conflict is worsening.

Signed by 600 Islamic clerics, the posters appeared amid a flurry of attacks which saw guerrillas fire rockets at a United Nations base in Kabul and at US military installations.

The deteriorating situation has been underscored in the past few days by the killing of two American special forces soldiers in an ambush in southern Afghanistan and the death of a Red Cross worker, shot through the head while on a mission to install water wells.

The posters are circulating in eastern Afghanistan.

The view from Damascus

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Jonathna Steele: The US wants to privatise Iraq's oil Many Arabs already define this neo-colonial war as a historic turning point which might have as profound an effect on the Arab psyche as September 11 did on Americans. Arabs have long been accustomed to seeing Israeli tanks running rampant. Now the puppet-master, arrogant and unashamed, has sent his helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles to Arab soil.

The US has mounted numerous coups in the Middle East to topple regimes in Egypt, Iran and Iraq itself. It has used crises, like the last Gulf war, to gain temporary bases and make them permanent. In Lebanon it once shelled an Arab capital and landed several hundred marines. But never before has it sent a vast army to change an Arab government. Even in Latin America, in two centuries of US hegemony, Washington has never dared to mount a full-scale invasion to overthrow a ruler in a major country. Its interventions in the Caribbean and Central America from 1898 to 1990 were against weak opponents in small states. Three years into the new millennium, the enormity of the shift and the impact of the spectacle on Arab television viewers cannot be over-estimated. Is it an image of the past or future, they ask, a one-off throw-back to Vietnam or a taste of things to come?

Sobering words about this cakewalk.

Yahoo! News - U.S. Prepared to Pay 'High Price' to Oust Saddam The United States is prepared to pay a "very high price" in terms of casualties to capture Baghdad and oust President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), a senior U.S. Central Command official said on Monday.

"We're prepared to pay a very high price because we are not going to do anything other than ensure that this regime goes away," the official told reporters, adding that U.S. casualties in the 12-day-old war had so far been "fairly" light.

"If that means there will be a lot of casualties, then there will be a lot of casualties," said the official, who spoke on condition that he not be named.

"There will come a time maybe when things are going to be much more shocking," he said, adding: "In World War II, there would be nights when we'd lose 1,000 people.

Capital Games
A recent article by Larry Goodson in the Journal of Democracy, which is published by the National Endowment for Democracy, should cause Iraqis to fret about their occupiers. Goodson, a professor of Middle East studies at the US Army War College, was a consultant in 2002 to the Afghan loya jirga that chose Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan's president. In the piece, he recalls being "excited to see democracy (of a sort) in action" when he witnessed Afghans voting last May for members of the loya jirga, He even gave a short speech, "telling the soon-to-be voters that the whole world was watching Afghanistan, and that any of them who had a complaint could come to me, as a representative of the international community."

Now the optimist is a pessimist. "Afghanistan's transition," Goodson writes, "even to stability (much less democracy) is highly unlikely. What is worse, after a largely successful military campaign, the United States and the rest of the world may have only a limited window of opportunity within which to aid Afghanistan's transition. Moreover, they may be losing interest in doing so, which would almost certainly doom any chance that the country might have." The United States, he argues, failed to do what was necessary to achieve stability in the country--that is, it did not maintain a security presence throughout Afghanistan, nor did it mount a "swift and massive" reconstruction. It essentially blocked "any serious international peacekeeping" outside of Kabul, which has enabled warlordism to rise outside the capital city. "Total spending on peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan during the past year," Goodson notes, "was $540 million, or about 5.4 percent of the roughly $10 billion that it cost the US-led military coalition to operate there."

I just designed the lights for the Cherry Red production of Penetrator. It's profane, violent, funny and nasty. See it.


Penetrator remains "one of the blackest, funniest, and most shocking comedy dramas you will ever see"-The Times(London).

Now this is just too damn bad -- Army kicks Geraldo out of Iraq.

MediaGuardian.co.uk | Broadcast | Rivera gets army boot out of Iraq Geraldo Rivera: de-accredited by US army
?Geraldo Rivera, the moustachioed former daytime TV presenter turned war reporter, has been kicked out of Iraq after "compromising" army operations.

He was de-accredited by the US military for reporting Western troop movements in the war, the Pentagon said on Monday.

"He was with a [US] military unit in the field and the commander felt that he had compromised operational information by reporting the position and movements of troops," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Reuters.

"The commander thought it best to get the reporter out of his battle space and we understand he is being removed from Iraq," Whitman said.

There were unconfirmed reports tonight that Rivera's crime was drawing his rough location in the sand, breaching strict military accreditation conditions which require journalists not to talk about their whereabouts.

Fox News in New York had no immediate comment, and Whitman said he did not have details of the

We are making friends everywhere.

News
British soldiers injured when an American "tankbuster" aircraft attacked their convoy, killing one of their comrades, today complained about the "cowboy" pilot.

Troops wounded in Friday's attack accused the A-10 Thunderbolt pilot of "incompetence and negligence" while others privately called for a manslaughter prosecution.

The comments came as America's most senior military official vowed to make it his quest to stop future "friendly fire" tragedies.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologised for the deadly error by the A-10 in southern Iraq.

He told BBC1's Breakfast With Frost: "It's the absolute saddest tragedy that any of us can experience.

"I don't think we have to live with situations like that, and one of my jobs has to be to ensure that we get the resources and the technical means to ensure that in the future this never, never happens again. And that will be my quest."

But the crews of the two British forward reconnaissance Scimitars which were attacked by the A-10 could not contain their anger.

Lance Corporal of Horse Steven Gerrard, speaking from his bed on the RFA Argus in the Gulf, said: "I can command my vehicle. I can keep it from being attacked. What I have not been trained to do is look over my shoulder to see whether an American is shooting at me."

LCoH Gerrard, the commander of the leading vehicle, described to Patrick Barkham of The Times how the deadly A-10 attack began. The pilot made two swoops.

"I will never forget that noise as long as I live. It is a noise I never want to hear again," he said.

How about "Pray that we have a President elected by a majority of the people."

US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush. 30/3/2003. ABC News Online They may be the ones facing danger on the battlefield, but US soldiers in Iraq are being asked to pray for President George W Bush.
Thousands of marines have been given a pamphlet called "A Christian's Duty," a mini prayer book which includes a tear-out section to be mailed to the White House pledging the soldier who sends it in has been praying for Bush.
"I have committed to pray for you, your family, your staff and our troops during this time of uncertainty and tumult. May God's peace be your guide," says the pledge, according to a journalist embedded with coalition forces.
The pamphlet, produced by a group called In Touch Ministries, offers a daily prayer to be made for the US president, a born-again Christian who likes to invoke his God in speeches.
Sunday's is "Pray that the President and his advisers will seek God and his wisdom daily and not rely on their own understanding".
Monday's reads "Pray that the President and his advisers will be strong and courageous to do what is right regardless of critics".

Woops.

Argument "Know your enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will never be in danger" – another timeless aphorism from General Sun-Tzu, in fourth-century BC China. The failure to anticipate the appearance of suicide bombers – hardly unknown in the Middle East – reflects a wider failure to understand Sun-Tzu's seminal observation.

A really key, crass and totally avoidable omission is the lack of Arabic speakers and translators in the combat zone. One in four soldiers has a translation guide, although few are likely to be able to use it well. If you are trying to win "hearts and minds", you have to speak the local language.

The Americans showed their arrogance early on by referring to the proposed operation as a "crusade". But this war has clearly been in the offing for years and planned for months. It would not have been hard to pick one smart officer or NCO from each platoon and put them on a two-month Arabic course. Compared with the cost of weaponry, that would have been a negligible cost. In the Second World War, all the combatants had plenty of people who spoke their opponents' languages and spent months or even, in the case of the Japanese, years training translators and interpreters. Has the conceit of the English-speaking world really reached such dizzying heights?

Sacrifice is for suckers.

TAP: Web Feature: Offensive Interference. by Robert Kuttner. March 27, 2003. This administration's slogan might as well be, "Sacrifice is for suckers." While young men and women risk their lives in a war whose rationale remains to be proven, the larger Bush program diverts money from services to ordinary Americans, even our homeland security -- to give tax breaks to multimillionaires.

Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, stands to make a pile of money as a military contractor in Iraq, while Richard Perle, one of the architects of the Iraq war, is to receive $725,000 as a consultant to a telecom company seeking regulatory approval from the Pentagon.

War is never good for democratic deliberation. That's why it's so good for this administration, whose policies would otherwise not withstand public scrutiny.

Our media are a bunch of credulous toadies to the powerful.

15 Stories They've Already Bungled Here, then, is a list of stories that have been widely misreported or poorly reported so far:

1. Saddam may well have been killed in the first night's surprise attack (March 20).

2. Even if he wasn't killed, Iraqi command and control was no doubt "decapitated" (March 22).

3. Umm Qasr has been taken (March 22).

4. Most Iraqis soldiers will not fight for Saddam and instead are surrendering in droves (March 22).

5. Iraqi citizens are greeting Americans as liberators (March 22).

6. An entire division of 8,000 Iraqi soldiers surrendered en masse near Basra (March 23).

7. Several Scud missiles, banned weapons, have been launched against U.S. forces in Kuwait (March 23).

8. Saddam's Fedayeen militia are few in number and do not pose a serious threat (March 23).

9. Basra has been taken (March 23).

10. Umm Qasr has been taken (March 23).

11. A captured chemical plant likely produced chemical weapons (March 23).

12. Nassiriya has been taken (March 23).

13. Umm Qasr has been taken (March 24).

14. The Iraqi government faces a "major rebellion" of anti-Saddam citizens in Basra (March 24).

15. A convoy of 1,000 Iraqi vehicles and Republican Guards are speeding south from Baghdad to engage U.S. troops (March 25).

What a bunch of fuckin' amateurs: A St. Pete Times editorial

Opinion: Ignoring the generals Other veteran Gulf War commanders agree with McCaffrey, and their views are not mere second-guessing. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 war, said months ago that he was "somewhat nervous at some of the pronouncements (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld has made." Schwarzkopf said he feared that Rumsfeld and his civilian advisers had "disregard(ed) the Army" in establishing their quick-strike plans.

A cornerstone of American democracy is our tradition of civilian control over our armed forces. President Bush and other members of his administration, with the advice and consent of congressional leaders, are ultimately responsible for determining when and how our military forces will be deployed. That is as it should be.

However, the lives of American soldiers are put at risk if our battlefield plans are based on the political assumptions of civilian ideologues instead of the expertise of our military leaders. Some of those ideologues within and outside the White House painted a scenario of an easy military victory in Iraq because it fit their broader political goals. Our military planning needs to be based on more clear-eyed calculations.

All Americans hope that the war in Iraq can be concluded as quickly and successfully as possible, minimizing casualties among American troops and Iraqi civilians. If some of the assumptions on which our military plans were based have turned out to be flawed, our government should waste no time in changing plans accordingly and bolstering our forces in ways that can hasten military victory and serve our long-term security interests.

Oh yes, they are welcoming us with open arms and cheery smiles. Why, it's like Paris 1944 all over again.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Jubilation turns to hate as aid arrives "Take it back," he yelled, pretending to push it away. "We want the Americans to go back home. We do not need them here. Go back home. I do not need this."

Around him, his friends giggled. Not far away, people rushed out of earthen buildings and raced down a dual carriageway. Ali, however, seemed to realise the irony only too well. "They bomb. And now they want to give water and food. How can they do both? How?" It was then that the gunfire erupted.

Earlier, the soldiers had been optimistic but pensive. After enduring a rainy and windy night in the disused hanger at the Shaiba airfield, the convoy had been well intentioned. It was a curious sight: a line of trucks bearing much-needed humani tarian aid - aid that betrayed all the hallmarks of an occupying force, but aid nonetheless. The Iraqis, while initially jubilant, were quickly sceptical.

"I need electricity," said Moyed Abdullah, 33. "I need to power my house. See the electricity lines? They are not working; they have not been working for days. Do you bring any electricity?"

Around him, British and US soldiers struggled to control the crowds. Time and again, the Iraqis were pushed back - always, they seemed to slip in under the makeshift rope-line. After a while, it seemed, it was better simply to stand back and wait for the inevitable to happen.

The burst of gunfire from across the road finally stopped all attempts to supply the aid. As soldiers leapt into the jeeps, a Warrior turned round and took out the position the gunfire had come from. And with daylight fast fading, the humanitarian task force decided to speed back to its base at Shaibah airfield.

Tomorrow, they will undoubtedly try again to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi civilians. And presumably tomorrow, they will encounter yet more resentment.

Does this sound familiar?

BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Flashback: Invasion of Kuwait Baghdad had justified their invasion of Kuwait - a monarchy with only an extremely limited parliamentary franchise - in terms of supporting a popular revolution in the country.

Initial communiques from Baghdad spoke of organising elections, and then withdrawing.

Iraq's ambassador to the United States, Mohammed al-Mashat, delivered a promise that it would not be long before the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait took effect.

The Iraqi forces will be withdrawn as soon as the situation has settled down, and as soon as the free government of Kuwait has so wished
Iraq's ambassador to the US Mohammed al-Mashat
"The Iraqi forces will be withdrawn as soon as the situation has settled down, and as soon as the free government of Kuwait has so wished. We hope that this will be a matter of a few days, or a few weeks at the latest", the ambassador told Washington.

Every time I hear someone use the word "liberation" with regard to what we are doing in Iraq it drives me crazy. We aren't liberating the country, or the people. We aren't spreading democracy by other means. What we are doing is conquering Iraq. We are subjugating the territory, the military, government and people by force of arms -- we are then going to impose our will on the conquered. Maybe we are doing it for good, moral and noble reasons. But to pretend that this war is not an invasion with the express purpose of creating a regime friendly to the United States is to distort the language.


Or perhaps Bush is liberating the Iraqi people -- after all, one definition (from the OED) is "ironically, to subject to a new tyranny."

In other words, "Blair comes to US to argue on side of sanity"

BBC NEWS | UK | Politics | Blair arrives for US summit The role of the UN has been seen as a possible sticking point between the UK and US after the failure to secure a Security Council resolution immediately before the war.

Mr Blair wants any authority which replaces Saddam Hussein's regime to be endorsed by a new UN resolution, despite the reluctance of France and Russia to support one.

Those hopes received a boost on Wednesday from US Secretary-General Colin Powell, who told Congress that America would seek a role for the UN.

I don't believe him.

CBS News | Call Goes Out For U.S. Reinforcements | March 26, 2003 21:15:40 ) As the war many hoped would be short enters its second week, the U.S. military is calling for reinforcements, CBS News has learned.

The commander of American ground forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, has asked the Pentagon to fly in part of an armored cavalry regiment from the states, about 700 soldiers, to help protect the supply lines in southern Iraq which have come under unexpectedly fierce attack from Saddam's so-called Fedayeen fighters, CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports.

The 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk, La., and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Carson, Colo., will be deployed.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the increase of the force size in Iraq was pre-planned and has nothing to do with how the war is going.

"We are increasing the number of forces in the country every day," Rumsfeld said.

I thought we were friends with the new Russia.

New Zealand News - - Russia slams US on Iraq, scorns 'liberation' claim MOSCOW - Russia today fired a new broadside against the United States over its military action against Iraq, scorning claims its troops were "liberating" Iraqis and accusing it of defying world opinion.

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, using language at times reminiscent of the Cold War rivalry with Washington, said: "What the United States is doing challenges not only Iraq, but the whole world."

Addressing parliament as US and British forces pressed forward to Baghdad, Ivanov said the evidence so far gainsaid US efforts to portray its troops as a liberating force freeing Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's rule.

"It is already becoming clear how far removed from reality are their attempts to present military action against Iraq as a triumphant march for the liberation of the Iraqi people with minimal casualties and destruction," he told the Federation Council (upper house).

He counselled Washington and London not to make unsubstantiated claims to have found caches of banned weapons in Iraq to justify their military offensive.

"If there are claims by coalition forces about discovering weapons of mass destruction... only international inspectors can make a conclusive assessment of the origin of these weapons," he said.

"No other evaluation and final conclusion can be accepted."

This idea is stupid on so many levels.

Newsday.com - Lawmakers Seek National Day of Prayer WASHINGTON -- Harking back to the Revolutionary and Civil wars, the House is talking about a national day of humility, prayer and fasting to seek guidance from God during a time of war and terrorism.

A vote on urging President Bush to designate such a day was expected later in the week.

"It is a resolution that I think all of us can support with humility and grace and our love for our great nation," Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said Wednesday.

But several lawmakers were less sure. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, an opponent of the war in Iraq, said, "This resolution may be seen by some as an attempt to inject religion into this war at a time when some of America's enemies abroad are asserting that this indeed is a war about religion."

Yes, these people will exploit anything in order to aid the rich.

Bush Administration Using War to Justify Its Tax Cut (washingtonpost.com) With the nation at war, the White House has introduced a new justification for President Bush's $726 billion tax cut: Do it for the troops.

Three times in the past week, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has urged the passage of Bush's tax cut, as he put it Monday, "to make sure that the economy can grow and that jobs can be created, so that when our men and women in the military return home, they'll have jobs to come home to."

Democrats and some moderate Republicans argue just the opposite: that Bush's tax cut is antithetical to the war effort and to a variety of defense and domestic causes in need of government funding. As evidence of this, the Senate voted yesterday to slash Bush's tax cut in half, to about $350 billion. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) attributed the vote to "concern about the cost and the uncertainty" of the Iraq war. "We've never cut taxes in time of war," he said.

Meanwhile -- India and Pakistan test fire missiles.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | India and Pakistan test fire missiles Bitter rivals India and Pakistan both test fired nuclear-capable missiles today, raising tensions on the subcontinent three days after 24 Hindus were murdered in the disputed region of Kashmir.

India appeared to have moved first, firing a surface-to-surface Prithvi missile at 11.30am (0600GMT) from a testing range in the eastern state of Orissa. A defence ministry spokesman, Baljit Singh Menon, described the short-range missile test as a routine event to improve the version of the Prithvi that would be used by the army.

"The launch was witnessed by senior army officials. All the objectives of the mission were met and the launch was successful in every respect," Mr Menon said.

Pakistan then test fired a short-range nuclear-capable missile with range to hit parts of India, the Pakistani foreign ministry said.

More on our hypocrisy: was the bombing of the Iraqi television station a vioaltion of the Geneva Convention?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | TV station attack could be illegal Questions are being raised about the legality of the bombing of Iraqi television's main station in Baghdad. The attack appears to have been triggered by Washington's determination to pull the plugs on a vital propaganda weapon of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Amnesty International said that the bombing could be a breach of the Geneva Conventions. "The bombing of a television station, simply because it is being used for the purposes of propaganda, cannot be condoned. It is a civilian object, and thus protected under international humanitarian law," it said.

"To justify such an attack, coalition forces would have to show that the TV station was being used for military purposes, and that the attack properly balanced the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated with the incidental risk to civilian life", Claudio Cordone, Amnesty's director for international law, added.

The International Federation of Journalists described the attack as an attempt at censorship, and said that it may have breached the Geneva Conventions.

"I think there should be a clear international investigation into whether or not this bombing violates the Geneva Conventions," Aidan White, its general secretary, said.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, RIP

Former Sen. Moynihan Has Died (washingtonpost.com) Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the scholar and senator, the orator and author, whose intellectual and political leadership did much to shape national policy on the major issues of his time, died today, his successor, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced on the Senate floor.

The cause of death was not immediately announced but Sen. Moynihan, 76, had been ill for several months. This month he had been hospitalized at the Washington Hospital Center after an emergency appendectomy.

Ralph Peters on the amateurs running this war.

Shock, Awe and Overconfidence (washingtonpost.com) Now we are trying to prosecute a war according to another military theory, "shock and awe." Again, bold claims have led to disappointments redeemed only by the skill and determination of our military.

Explained as simply as possible, the shock-and-awe theory proposes that America's arsenal of precision weapons has developed so remarkably that aerial bombardment can shatter an opponent's will to resist. The airstrikes are to be so dramatic in sensory effect and so precise in targeting a regime's leadership infrastructure that the enemy's decision-makers see no choice but surrender.

The first waves of airstrikes on Baghdad were indeed dramatic and precise. The problem is that one's enemies don't necessarily respond to theories. Shock and awe, like blitzkrieg before it, would work superbly against Belgium. But its advocates failed to consider the nature of Saddam Hussein's regime.

No matter how shocked and awed the Iraqi leadership may be, surrender is not, never was and never will be an option for Hussein and his inner circle. Because of the nature of their regime and its crimes, the contest is all or nothing for them.

Had the most senior officials surrounding Donald Rumsfeld paused to consider the enemy, instead of rushing to embrace a theory they found especially congenial for political reasons, they would have realized that you cannot convince Hussein, his sons or his inner circle that they have been defeated. You must actually defeat them. And you must do it the old-fashioned way, albeit with improved weapons, by killing them and destroying their instruments of power.

Josh Marshall on our botched diplomacy with the Turks.

Don’t place blame on the Turks=TheHill.com= The reality of the situation is that the Turks almost universally oppose our war against Iraq. Yet the Erdogan government was extremely keen to prove its secular, pro-western bona-fides to the Turkish political establishment — particularly the military. To do so, it went to great lengths to get the Turkish parliament to approve the presence of U.S. troops on Turkish soil — even in the face of almost universal public opposition. They failed of course.

But if the problem were really the new ‘fundamentalist’ government in Ankara, you would expect that our secularist allies — who are now in the opposition — would have voted in favor of our presence. But they didn’t. And we pretty much have only ourselves to blame.

The Bush administration acted toward Turkey like the stereotypical rogue from a 1950s B-Movie. First we told Turkey what we wanted. When she balked, we got a little rough. When even that didn’t do the trick, we pulled out our wallet, saying in essence, “Fine, how much do you want?� When even cash failed, we told her to get out of the car and walk home.

Secularism is probably too deeply entrenched in the Turkish military and society at large for us to do it much harm with such carping. But if you were really intent on pushing the Turks out of the pro-Western orbit, you probably couldn’t find a better approach than that now pursued by Safire, Bell and others like them.

Another article that's pessimistic about the chances for a quick and easy victory.

Argument The good news is that Allied units are unlikely to be surprised by large-scale armoured counter-attacks. The "battlespace" should be "transparent": there should be "total battlespace dominance". But a couple of snipers in the upper floors of a building will stop you having dominance.

Estimates of the number of Iraqi prisoners have been revised downwards to a couple of thousand. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Iraq's armed forces numbered about 375,000 before the start of the war. Even with the most inflated estimate of Iraqi dead and prisoners, that still leaves about 370,000. This is not going to be a short war.

Joe Conason with more on criticism by military men of the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz amateur hour.

Salon.com | Joe Conason's Journal You may not hear about this on TV, unless you happen to glimpse former Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who appeared on the BBC and elsewhere speaking out about Rumsfeld's error -- and the three or four thousand American casualties that may result. At the time of his retirement (when he took over the impossible drug war), he was the Army's most highly decorated and youngest four-star general. He commanded a mechanized infantry division during the last Gulf War. As the Washington Post's superb Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks report today (in a story buried on Page A17), the general is speaking for many veteran officers when he says "there should have been a minimum of two heavy divisions and an armored cavalry regiment on the ground" before the invasion began.

(McCaffrey's concern echoed comments made by Gen. Wesley Clark during an interview with Salon. When asked why the Pentagon would start a war without all the troops in place, Clark responded: "I can't explain it. I can't defend it; I've never seen the plan.")

"How large a force is necessary to invade Iraq has been a point of contention for months between some ground commanders, particularly those in the Army, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld," according to Ricks and Loeb. "He insisted that air power, information dominance and speed enable the U.S. military to achieve much greater effect with a smaller, more agile force." The incompetent diplomacy that removed Turkey from the coalition has made matters worse by delaying the arrival of the Fourth Armored Division's equipment, which had to be rerouted through Kuwait.

Lesson # 33 on why you have to read the foreign press.

In this article from The Guardian, it is pointed out that news of the "uprising" in Basra emerged at a very convenient time. can you imagine an American paper making the same point?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | British forces support Basra 'uprising' The first success of the day - which came just at the right moment for prime-time television news in the UK - was a claim by the British military that a "popular uprising" against Saddam Hussein's regime had broken out in Basra.

British forces then weighed in with artillery support for the rebelling Shia population and a 2,000-lb bomb was dropped on the Ba'ath party headquarters, according to reports. The British deputy commander, Major-General Peter Wall, hailed the uprising as "just the sort of encouraging indication we have been looking for".

At present, very little news is coming out of Basra from independent sources, so it is difficult to be sure what is really happening. Some British versions have been much more cautious, describing the uprising as "nascent", while Al-Jazeera's reporter inside the city said there was no sign of any uprising at all.

Until now, Shia organisations in southern Iraq have been very wary of getting involved in the war. In 1991, the US encouraged them to rebel but then abandoned them to their fate at the hands of Saddam's merciless men.

Sooprize, sooprize, sooprize!

Iraq rebuilding contracts awarded - Mar. 25, 2003 NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The first contracts for rebuilding post-war Iraq have been awarded, and Vice President Dick Cheney's old employer, Halliburton Co., is one of the early winners.

The Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) unit of Halliburton (HAL: up $0.54 to $20.66, Research, Estimates), of which Cheney was CEO from 1995 to 2000, said late Monday that it was awarded a contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to put out oil fires and make emergency repairs to Iraq's oil infrastructure.

President Bush Tuesday asked Congress for $489.3 million to cover the cost of repairing damage to Iraq's oil facilities, much or all of which could go to Halliburton or its subcontractors under the terms of its contract with the Army.

Bush alienates France, Germany, Russia, China, Turkey, everyone in the UK but Tony Blair, Mexico, and now, Canada.

Yahoo! News - U.S. Raps Canada on Iraq, Says Should Quiet Critics The U.S. ambassador to Canada took the unusual step on Tuesday of openly criticizing Ottawa for not backing the war on Iraq (news - web sites) and urged Prime Minister Jean Chretien to muzzle anti-U.S. sentiment in his government.

The comments by an angry Paul Cellucci dramatically reflected how much relations between the two close allies and trading partners have deteriorated over the last few months, mainly as a result of the Iraq crisis.

They also put more pressure on a Canadian government that refused to send troops to Iraq to fight an "unjustified" war but which now seems to be wishing the Americans well and backing their bid to remove Iraq leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) -- a concept that Ottawa had previously condemned.

Cellucci told an audience of business executives in Toronto that had Canada found itself under threat, Washington would have come to its aid immediately.

"There is no security threat to Canada that the United States would not be ready, willing and able to help with. There would be no debate, there would be no hesitation. We would be there for Canada -- part of our family," he thundered.

"And that is why so many in the United States are so disappointed and upset that Canada is not fully supporting us now," he said. In the speech, and in comments to reporters afterward, he mentioned U.S. disappointment 12 times.

What will have been most disconcerting for the audience was Cellucci's statement that the United States gave a higher priority to security than to the booming trade relationship between the two countries.

Fisk on Saddam's Great Patriotic War strategy.

Argument "Be patient," President Saddam kept saying. Be patient. Fourteen times in all, he told the army and the people of Iraq to be patient. "We will win ... we will be victorious against Evil." Patient but confident in victory. Fighting evil.

Wasn't that how President Bush was encouraging his people a few hours earlier? At other times, President Saddam sounded like his hero, Joseph Stalin. "They have come to destroy our country and we must stand and destroy them and defend our people and our country ... Cut their throats ... They are coming to take our land. But when they try to enter our cities, they try to avoid a battle with our forces and to stay outside the range of our weapons."

Was this, one wondered, modelled on the Great Patriotic War, the defence of Mother Russia under Uncle Joe? And if not, how to account for

It's nice to know we're not the only country with reflexive pro-war instincts.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Support for war surges The outbreak of war has triggered a big surge in support for military action against Iraq among British voters, according to the latest Guardian/ICM tracker poll.

The 15-point swing in public opinion recorded by the ICM survey means that there is now a clear majority, 54%, who back military action, after a sharp rise from 38% just a week ago. The results represent a sudden and widespread shift in public mood in Britain.

Opposition to the war has slumped in the past seven days from 44% to only 30% of the public, the lowest level since the Guardian began tracking public opinion on this issue last August.

An ICM poll for the News of the World over the weekend suggests that this surge in support for military action has been accompanied by a similar revival in Tony Blair's personal ratings.

The big swing in support as British troops go into action demonstrates the highly volatile nature of public opinion on Iraq.

But it must be open to question whether such a level of support can be sustained if there are serious military reverses and a consequent daily diet of harrowing television pictures.

The 30% opposed to the war still represents a substantial minority of the public and is particularly found among the young, Liberal Democrat supporters, and those living in the south-east of England.

The only age range in which opposition to the war is above 50% is the 18- to 24 group.

Nevertheless, the outright opposition of 30% of the adult population is still the highest level of opposition recorded by Gallup at the start of any war since 1950, when 31% said they opposed British troops going to fight in Korea. Fewer than one in four opposed the Falklands war, the 1991 Gulf war or Britain's involvement in Kosovo in 1999.

Joe Conason on the fantasies of the war hawks.

Salon.com | Joe Conason's Journal Minimizing civilian casualties, as the U.S. command is trying to do, means avoiding the use of heavy weaponry in populated areas. But that inevitably creates sanctuaries for Republican Guard, militia and guerrillas still loyal to the regime. In Basra, where easy victory would have prevented damage to water and electric utilities, the coalition has now been forced to use artillery, with collateral effects that may precipitate a serious humanitarian crisis. Winning Baghdad is likely to require more of the same and worse.

The Iraqis are weary with a decade of suffering, and many of them must hate Saddam. But that doesn't mean they want to be ruled by an American military governor or that they like seeing American flags raised over their cities. Such complexity isn't compatible with the fantasies of Adelman, Perle and Sullivan, but that is what our military now confronts on the battlefield.

Matthew Engel on the deliberate policy of the Bushies to target the French.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Death to French fries
Vilification of the enemy is normal in wartime. But, last we heard, the French were not the actual enemy. No one is going round blaming the Swiss, the Pope or the Quakers. No one is even saying much about the Iraqis, who were pretty much assumed to be onlookers until the weekend. Saddam himself has had nothing to compare with the post-September 11 odium heaped on Osama.

Most interestingly, no one is now denouncing the Germans either. And the truth behind that represents one of the more fascinating secrets of the past few weeks.

---

A month ago, all the bile for the failure to get UN support for their war was being directed at Germany. This reached its peak when Donald Rumsfeld created his own personal second-tier axis of evil, lumping the Germans together with Cuba and Libya as countries that would never, ever help the US.

Then, suddenly and deliberately, there was silence on that front: the verbal guns were trained one square further west. This was a very high-level Anglo-American decision and official sources explained that it was only fair: the Germans were not on the security council last autumn when resolution 1441 was passed and therefore had no obligation to support it; it was different with the "poisonous" French. That is a rationale, but hardly a reason.

The reason is harder to get at. The one thing we do know is that the change came at the very end of February, immediately after a visit to Washington by Angela Merkel, the German opposition leader, who was granted an A-list schedule, seeing just about everyone who matters except the president himself. Her public statements were strongly pro-American; privately, it is thought, she told Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice to back off, because the more they attacked the chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, the more they strengthened him politically. There are no comparable political divisions in France.

Britain went along with this strategy of assisting the German right, suggesting that the prime minister's journey towards becoming Ramsay MacBlair is continuing apace.

The boobs who get egged on by the US rightwing media are, I think, more comfortable with the new stance. German-Americans are the largest ethnic group in the country, and are especially strong in the heartland. As a group they prefer to keep their heads down politically, for obvious historical reasons. But an awful lot of people are at least part-German. In contrast, the concept of "French-American" hardly exists. Most Americans have probably never met a Frenchman, nor drunk French wine, eaten French cheese or driven a French car. Indeed, French culture has been in full retreat in the US for some time. The secondary language of choice in schools is now Spanish, for obvious demographic reasons. French is associated with the folks who go to fancy restaurants, vote Democratic and talk of Mer-LOW, Ren-WA and Van GO.

France thus fits the bill as a hateful and remote enemy, a role the Iraqis cannot fulfil. We hope and trust the vast majority of them believe they are being liberated. But the more they fight, the more it suggests that some, even outside the tyrannical elite, actually resent having their country invaded. And that thought is a little hard to contemplate right now.

Imagine...
that a country (the "Good Guys") was going to invade another country (the "Bad Guys"). Next door to the Bad Guys lived the Good Guys' ally, the Friends. Say that the Friends had a long-standing, simmering dispute with an ethnic group (oh hell, call them "Kurds") that lived both in Iraq and Turkey. Indeed, say that the Turks had soldiers actually in the Kurds enclave in Northern Iraq just to make sure they didn't get too uppity.

In light of all of the above, wouldn't it be extremely foolish to get involved in a war in Iraq before coming to an agreement with the Turks? I don't know about you, but it scares me to have the Turks and Kurds on edge, while we have American Special Forces in the area. This is one of the ways that war creates it's own reality -- when people start shooting, it's hard to control how others react. It's easy to think of a scenario where Americans and Turks are shooting at each other.

More on our Geneva Convention Hypocrisy

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | George Monbiot: One rule for them Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi television cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them".

He is, of course, quite right. Article 13 of the third convention, concerning the treatment of prisoners, insists that they "must at all times be protected... against insults and public curiosity". This may number among the less heinous of the possible infringements of the laws of war, but the conventions, ratified by Iraq in 1956, are non-negotiable. If you break them, you should expect to be prosecuted for war crimes.

This being so, Rumsfeld had better watch his back. For this enthusiastic convert to the cause of legal warfare is, as head of the defence department, responsible for a series of crimes sufficient, were he ever to be tried, to put him away for the rest of his natural life.

His prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where 641 men (nine of whom are British citizens) are held, breaches no fewer than 15 articles of the third convention. The US government broke the first of these (article 13) as soon as the prisoners arrived, by displaying them, just as the Iraqis have done, on television. In this case, however, they were not encouraged to address the cameras. They were kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind their backs, wearing blacked-out goggles and earphones. In breach of article 18, they had been stripped of their own clothes and deprived of their possessions. They were then interned in a penitentiary (against article 22), where they were denied proper mess facilities (26), canteens (28), religious premises (34), opportunities for physical exercise (38), access to the text of the convention (41), freedom to write to their families (70 and 71) and parcels of food and books (72).

They were not "released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities" (118), because, the US authorities say, their interrogation might, one day, reveal interesting information about al-Qaida. Article 17 rules that captives are obliged to give only their name, rank, number and date of birth. No "coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever". In the hope of breaking them, however, the authorities have confined them to solitary cells and subjected them to what is now known as "torture lite": sleep deprivation and constant exposure to bright light. Unsurprisingly, several of the prisoners have sought to kill themselves, by smashing their heads against the walls or trying to slash their wrists with plastic cutlery.

Jingoism and speculation -- two great tastes that taste great together.

MediaGuardian.co.uk | Special reports | NY stock exchange bans Arab TV network The New York stock exchange has banned al-Jazeera from its trading floor, prompting accusations that it was retaliating against the Arabic-language TV network's stance on the war in Iraq.

A reporter for al-Jazeera, which has been criticised by the US military for its coverage of conflict, has been barred from entering the exchange while another has been ordered to return his press card.

A spokesman for the NYSE said it was limiting access to "responsible" broadcasters and insisted other broadcasters had also been affected.

But al-Jazeera, which has covered the New York stock market for several years, said it believed it was the only channel affected by the action and attributed the decision to its stance on the war.

"Al-Jazeera has received an official letter from the New York stock exchange informing it that the station's financial reporters can no longer present their reports from the exchange," the satellite channel reported today on its morning financial broadcast.

It claimed the decision had been taken "because of al-Jazeera's coverage of the war on Iraq".

Barry McCaffrey tears into Rumsfeld.

I heard the interview with McCaffrey on the BBC, and this article actually understates his pessismism about the course of the war and distaste for rumsfeld.

Reuters News Article Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division 12 years ago, said the U.S.-led force faced "a very dicey two to three day battle" as it pushes north toward the Iraqi capital.

"We ought to be able to do it (take Baghdad)," he told the Newsnight Program on Britain's BBC Television late on Monday.

"In the process if they (the Iraqis) actually fight, and that's one of the assumptions, clearly it's going to be brutal, dangerous work and we could take, bluntly, a couple to 3,000 casualties," said McCaffrey who became one of the most senior ranking members of the U.S. military following the 1991 war.

"So if they (the Americans and British) are unwilling to face up to that, we may have a difficult time of it taking down Baghdad and Tikrit up to the north west."

McCaffrey said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had misjudged the nature of the conflict. Asked if Rumsfeld made a mistake by not sending more troops to start the offensive, McCaffrey replied: "Yes, sure. I think everybody told him that."

"I think he thought these were U.S. generals with their feet planted in World War II that didn't understand the new way of warfare," he added.

Why it's good to have a Democractic governor -- even if you live in backward-ass Virginia.

washingtonpost.com: Warner Vetoes Repeal of Estate Tax Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner today vetoed a proposed estate tax repeal that General Assembly Republicans championed this legislative election year despite Virginia's persistent state budget crisis.

Warner also vetoed a bill authorizing the state to issue a "Choose Life" license plate, which abortion opponents had won over the protests of abortion rights advocates and others who complained about the message. In addition, Warner returned measures on certain late-term abortions and parental consent for minors' abortions to the legislature with proposed amendments.

On a marathon day of executive action on bills passed during the assembly's winter session, Warner condemned the proposed estate tax cut as "irresponsible" during a fiscal crisis that he said may warrant the attention of a special budget-cutting legislative session this fall, just days before the Nov. 4 elections for all 140 assembly seats.

"We're still in the crunch," Warner said, alluding to weak tax collections and escalating state costs associated with terrorism preparedness.

Why it's good to have a Democractic governor -- even if you live in backward-ass Virginia.

washingtonpost.com: Warner Vetoes Repeal of Estate Tax Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner today vetoed a proposed estate tax repeal that General Assembly Republicans championed this legislative election year despite Virginia's persistent state budget crisis.

Warner also vetoed a bill authorizing the state to issue a "Choose Life" license plate, which abortion opponents had won over the protests of abortion rights advocates and others who complained about the message. In addition, Warner returned measures on certain late-term abortions and parental consent for minors' abortions to the legislature with proposed amendments.

On a marathon day of executive action on bills passed during the assembly's winter session, Warner condemned the proposed estate tax cut as "irresponsible" during a fiscal crisis that he said may warrant the attention of a special budget-cutting legislative session this fall, just days before the Nov. 4 elections for all 140 assembly seats.

"We're still in the crunch," Warner said, alluding to weak tax collections and escalating state costs associated with terrorism preparedness.

George Soros on the Bush doctrine.

TOMPAINE.com - An Allergic Reaction To The Bush Doctrine
Iraq is the first instance in which the Bush doctrine is being applied, and it is provoking an allergic reaction. The doctrine is built on two pillars: First, the United States will do everything in its power to maintain unquestioned military supremacy; second, it arrogates the right to preemptive action. These pillars support two classes of sovereignty: American sovereignty, which takes precedence over international treaties; and the sovereignty of all other states, which is subject to the Bush doctrine. This is reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal Farm: All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

The Bush doctrine is grounded in the belief that international relations are relations of power; legality and legitimacy are decorations. This belief is not entirely false but it exaggerates one aspect of reality -- military power -- at the exclusion of others.

Oh, we are such hypocrites.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | PoW footage 'breaks convention' "If we look at the reactions today in the US and the Arab world, they have been very similar. People have perceived [the pictures] as being an offence, a humiliation," ICRC spokesperson Antonella Notari told BBC News Online.

PoWs should not be used as part of the propaganda war between the two sides, and all warring factions should respect that, says Ms Notari, a former PoW in Somalia herself.

Those rules should have also been applied to images of PoWs at the US base of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"At that time, we approached the US authorities to ask them not to use these pictures," she says.

For more than a year now, the American Government has been criticised for the way it has treated hundreds of prisoners from the fighting in Afghanistan, says the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Barnaby Mason.

It has denied that those held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the rights of PoWs - instead Donald Rumsfeld came up with the description "unlawful combatants".

Pictures of some of them hooded and kneeling have been shown on television.

So some clown on CNN is talking to Wesley Clark about Apache helicopters. The CNN haircut is getting more excited watching animation of the chopper than I do watching porn. Yeesh

I thought Putin was Bush's good friend?

And then i remmebered that Bush has managed to alienate every single person on the planet.BBC NEWS | Europe | Bush confronts Putin on Iraq arms US President George W Bush has complained directly to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that Russian companies have been selling military equipment to Iraq in breach of UN sanctions.

The White House says it has "credible evidence" that Russian companies had sold military equipment such as satellite-jamming devices, anti-tank missiles and night-vision goggles to Iraq, despite Russian denials.

In a phone conversation with Mr Bush, the Russian president said he would look into the allegations immediately, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Winning hearts and minds.

CNN.com - Arab League 'salutes Iraqis' - Mar. 24, 2003 The Arab League is considering a draft resolution on the war in Iraq and has offered solid support to the Iraqi people.

The league, meeting in Cairo, is calling for an urgent U.N. Security Council session. The consensus evolving from the meeting indicates strong support for the Iraqi people and their current situation.

Amr Moussa, the league's secretary general, said: "I salute the Iraqis and wish them victory."

Moussa, Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmood Hamood and others at the meeting say the war is an example of renewed Western imperialism.

They say the war is part of a long-term plan is to change the Middle East map and remove national leaders such as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abderrahmane Chalgam condemned the "aggression" and said: "We must lift our heads and greet the bravery of the Iraqi people."

The bullying, thin-skinned Bush White House.

Don BUSH HAS PERSONALIZED this war to such an extreme that even if American forces take over all of Iraq and find weapons of mass destruction, the war will not be judged a success unless Saddam is captured or his body is found. It’s a Bush family trait to turn everything into a grudge match. Anybody who crosses Bush gets the treatment. During last fall’s congressional races, Republican operatives likened Democratic leader Tom Daschle to Saddam Hussein because he stood in the way of passing Bush’s legislation. Daschle is again in the crossfire for criticizing Bush’s failure to resolve the impasse over Iraq with diplomacy.
The White House slapped down Daschle and implied he was unpatriotic. “France has a better chance of getting back in Bush’s good graces,” said one official. He called Daschle’s comment “passive-aggressive B.S.” and mused that the senator’s anger might stem from second thoughts over his decision not to run for president. What so offended Bush and his minions was Daschle saying he was “saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn’t create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country.”
“He was saying people are going to die because the president couldn’t get his act together,” fumed the White House official. “Blatant partisan guerilla warfare is fine on taxes and Social Security, but on this one, couldn’t he just save it?” West Virginia octogenarian Robert Byrd who rails against the war on the Senate floor doesn’t offend as much because Byrd couches his criticism in a mannerly history lesson about the Constitution. Daschle’s sniping gets under Bush’s skin. “He has an amazing ability to double deal,” says a White House aide. “He’s so nice in meetings; then he goes out and nails us.”

75th Annual Academy Awards ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
Michael Moore: Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to ? they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.

The Guardian on Bush's political incompetence.

Guardian Unlimited | World dispatch | Flags in the dust
As the invasion forces move closer to Baghdad, it is still an open question as to whether ordinary Iraqis will view them as conquerors or liberators. The omens so far are not particularly good. When they arrived in Safwan last Friday, one Iraqi greeted them by saying: "What took you so long? God help you to become victorious."

Possibly he meant it, though it's not hard to imagine similar words being addressed to anyone who arrived in town with a conspicuous display of weaponry. Two Reuters correspondents, travelling independently of the military, told a different story:

"One group of Iraqi boys on the side of the road smiled and waved as a convoy of British tanks and trucks rolled by. But once it had passed, leaving a trail of dust and grit in its wake, their smiles turned to scowls. 'We don't want them here,' said 17-year-old Fouad, looking angrily up at the plumes of grey smoke rising from Basra. 'Saddam is our leader,' he said defiantly. 'Saddam is good'."

All these effects were easily foreseeable, though not easily avoided once a decision was made to go to war. With less than a week gone, the invasion forces may be slowly winning the battle on land and in the air but Iraq is winning the battle of hearts and minds.

To have reached such a position against an adversary who is demonstrably one of the world's most disgusting tyrants, to have transformed him into a hero figure, and to have transformed the American flag into a symbol of oppression, is not only unfortunate but reeks of political incompetence.

Read this.

Chicago Tribune: War from 30,00 feet If the only thing we still have to fear is fear itself, there is more than enough to go around.
When President Roosevelt coined the phrase in his inaugural address in 1933, he used it to banish fear and steel the nation's courage in facing down the Great Depression.
Seventy years later to the month, President Bush is using fear as a weapon, not to build courage among Americans but to stampede them into endorsing a case for a war that has been built literally on a grab bag of possibilities, contingencies, ifs and maybes, of things that haven't happened but could happen, of bad guys who might hit us if we don't hit them first.
This is a created crisis. Now that the crisis is upon us, we can only hope that it passes quickly, with minimum loss of life on either side, and that our native skepticism prevents it from happening again.
Supporters of the war have presented some strong arguments--Saddam Hussein's repeated flouting of UN resolutions, or his reign of terror over the Iraqi people. But when Bush made his final case for war in his ultimatum speech to the nation Tuesday night, what came through instead was the voice of a frightened man trying to infect the nation with his fear.
In the short term, this fear is working. In times of crisis, it often does. When the president of the United States sounds the alarm, the natural instinct of Americans is to rally to his side, to assume that he knows the facts and is reacting to a real danger. The hunch that the danger is mostly imaginary is as unproven as are most of the administration's justifications for this war.
Fear has finally given Bush the popular backing for the war that had eluded him since he first began campaigning for it. Less than six months ago, barely 20 percent of Americans told pollsters that they would approve a war on Iraq without the backing of allies or the UN. Now that support is more than 70 percent, even though the UN has refused its backing and the allied support ranges from the plausible, like Britain, through the symbolic, like Iceland, to the ludicrous, like Azerbaijan or Eritrea.
Most of the rest of the world remains unconvinced, not out of affection for Hussein but out of conviction that Bush and his neoconservative advisers have manufactured an unneeded war, for reasons of their own, and are leading an America that, with its power and lack of restraint, is more dangerous to world order than Hussein ever could be.
"As much as one would like to get Saddam Hussein out of power, this is going to be George Bush's war," said the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Too many Americans, cheered on by the administration, blame this attitude on the French. But it takes more than Gallic lures to persuade so much of the world, including allies who have stood beside us in conflicts through the past half-century, to desert us on this one.
National hysteria
The fact is that national hysteria does not translate well. Americans not only are afraid but they are isolated in their fear, with a few scattered sympathizers, like Albania and Uzbekistan, arrayed against the overwhelming opinion of a world that thinks we have gone collectively nuts.
Most commentators, noting the macho strutting of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the president's insistence that the world is either for us or against us, have blamed the Iraq policy more on testosterone than terror, with an unhealthy dash of hyper-religious certainty mixed in. But Bush often comes across as truly frightened, convinced of threats that the rest of the world just doesn't see.
These presidential fears were on full display in his ultimatum speech.
The president claimed that Hussein has "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." By any reckoning, this just isn't true. No one doubts that Iraq has developed chemical and biological weapons of uncertain effectiveness, as have many other nations. But effective anthrax? Not known. Smallpox? No evidence. Nuclear weapons? Certainly not now.

To paraphrase the Blues Brothers: "we've got both kinds, shock and awe."

The incomparable Bob Somerby.

David Frum goes after Robert Novak—and brings Saddam right to our shores
How stupid can people get at times of war? People can get very stupid. For example, they claim that those who oppose a war are somehow "against the troops!"? You're right -- it's hard to get dumber than that. But who knows? Perhaps they believe that, in the American system, the troops decide when wars should be fought. That, of course, would be very stupid. But stress makes these folks deeply stupid.

What do we learn from the Frums and the Coulters? That American values -- indeed, that all post-Enlightenment, western-world values -- are a very recent overlay, superimposed on much older impulses. These impulses undermine the western values we commonly claim to hold dear. These impulses were selected for millions of years ago, in the distant, pre-human past. They promote ancestral, pre-western thinking. The Frums and the Coulters give them voice.

What do these impulses tell us to think? They tell us that our own specific tribe must be right?and that all other tribes must be evil and wrong. These impulses say that those who disagree with our views must disagree out of evil. They tell us to stamp out those who disagree -- to brand them Enemies of the State. And remember: These impulses are lodged in the human soul. Right up to this very day, these ancient impulses will persuade all those who don?t choose to resist them.

Bush: Big Bully

Check out the Editor's note at the beginning of this article. Has the Post become a wholly-owned subsidiary of this White House?
washingtonpost.com: Bush's Strong Arm Can Club Allies Too

Editor's note: This article was withheld from later editions of yesterday's paper to accommodate coverage of the start of the war in Iraq.

After a Newsweek cover story in 1987 titled "Bush Battles the Wimp Factor," the label stuck to George H.W. Bush for years. Now, his son is creating the opposite perception: the Bully Factor.

As the United States wages war this week following a pair of ultimatums to the United Nations and Iraq, the airwaves and editorial pages of the world have been full of accusations that President Bush and his administration are guilty of coercive and harrying behavior. Even in typically friendly countries, Bush and the United States have been given such labels this week as "arrogant bully" (Britain), "bully boys" (Australia), "big bully" (Russia), "bully Bush" (Kenya), "arrogant" (Turkey) and "capricious" (Canada). Diplomats have accused the administration of "hardball" tactics, "jungle justice" and acting "like thugs."

At home, where support for the war on Iraq is strong and growing, such complaints of strong-arm tactics by the Bush administration nonetheless have a certain resonance -- even among Bush supporters. Though the issues are vastly different, Republican lawmakers and conservative interest groups report similar pressure on allies at home to conform to Bush's policy wishes.

Although all administrations use political muscle on the opposition, GOP lawmakers and lobbyists say the tactics the Bush administration uses on friends and allies have been uniquely fierce and vindictive. Just as the administration used unbending tactics before the U.N. Security Council with normally allied countries such as Mexico, Germany and France, the Bush White House has calculated that it can overcome domestic adversaries if it tolerates no dissent from its friends.

In recent weeks, the White House has been pushing GOP governors to oust the leadership of the National Governors Association to make the bipartisan group endorse Bush's views. Interest groups report pressure from the administration -- sometimes on groups' donors -- to conform to Bush's policy views and even to fire dissenters.

United Press International: Top White House anti-terror boss resigns

United Press International: Top White House anti-terror boss resigns "This is a very intriguing decision (by Beers)," said author and intelligence expert James Bamford. "There is a predominant belief in the intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq will cause more terrorism than it will prevent. There is also a tremendous amount of embarrassment by intelligence professionals that there have been so many lies out of the administration -- by the president, (Vice President Dick) Cheney and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell -- over Iraq."

Bamford cited a recent address by President Bush that cited documents, which allegedly proved Iraq was continuing to pursue a nuclear program, that were later shown to be forgeries.

"It is absurd that the president of the United States mentioned in a speech before the world information from phony documents and no one got fired," Bamford said. "That alone has offended intelligence professionals throughout the services."

But some involved in the fight on terror said that it was dangerous to look too far into one resignation -- particularly from an official who has not blamed the war on Iraq.

"I found his resignation shocking," said one official closely involved in the domestic fight on terror. "And it might reflect a certain frustration over the allocation of resources. But I'm not positive that there's a consensus (among intelligence services) that deposing Saddam's regime is a bad idea for fighting terror. I think that there are serious concerns about resources and alienating allies, but some of us see an upside."

But others point out that the CIA warned Congress last year that an invasion might lead to a rise in terrorism. This, they say, is evidence there's more than just ambivalence about the war among the spy community.

"If it was your job to prevent terror attacks, would you be happy about an action that many see as unnecessary, that is almost guaranteed to cause more terror in the short-term?" said one official. "I know I'm not (happy)."

United Press International: Top White House anti-terror boss resigns

United Press International: Top White House anti-terror boss resigns The top National Security Council official in the war on terror resigned this week for what a NSC spokesman said were personal reasons, but intelligence sources say the move reflects concern that the looming war with Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism.

Rand Beers would not comment for this article, but he and several sources close to him are emphatic that the resignation was not a protest against an invasion of Iraq. But the same sources, and other current and former intelligence officials, described a broad consensus in the anti-terrorism and intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq would divert critical resources from the war on terror.

Beers has served as the NSC's senior director for counter-terrorism only since August. The White House said Wednesday that he officially remains on the job and has yet to set a departure date.

"Hardly a surprise," said one former intelligence official. "We have sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our military and intel resources and the relationships with our allies."

This is stupid enough to be American.

I would believe that this was an April Fool's joke, if it wasn't a few days early.The Observer | UK News | Brewers prepare to seduce young drinkers with wave of 'Viagra pops' Libido-boosting drinks will flood into bars this summer as young clubbers are targeted with a potent new range of products that have been dubbed 'Viagra pops'.

Powerful blends of Chinese aphrodisiacs, vodka and passion fruit will create a 'generation of randy super beings', according to drinks manufacturers who expect the new tipples to rock the market the way alcopops did in the 1990s.

None will actually contain Viagra, produced by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer, relying instead on Chinese herbs such as cordyceps and epimedium grandiflorum, better known as Horny Goat Weed.

The first of these 'passion potions', Roxxoff, will sell for as little as £1.50 when it rolls out across the UK over the next month. Drinks industry sources suggest that at least three other firms are poised to launch their own versions.

'This is what everyone in the business is talking about,' said one insider. 'For months now firms have been trying to get the blends right in time for the warm weather.'

Marketing experts say the new sector could spawn sales of more than five million cases in the first year alone.

Surrey-based Lynch Wines is launching Roxxoff, which has an alcohol content of 5.4 per cent, in a series of adverts featuring Dannii Minogue wearing little and holding a bottle.

Its publicity proclaims a 'sensational scientifically blended concoction of potent and proven aphrodisiacs' that could lead to 'a generation of randy super beings'.

Why I've opposed the war -- the Bush Administration's constant lying.

C.I.A. Aides Feel Pressure in Preparing Iraqi Reports The recent disclosure that reports claiming Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger were based partly on forged documents has renewed complaints among analysts at the C.I.A. about the way intelligence related to Iraq has been handled, several intelligence officials said.

Analysts at the agency said they had felt pressured to make their intelligence reports on Iraq conform to Bush administration policies.

For months, a few C.I.A. analysts have privately expressed concerns to colleagues and Congressional officials that they have faced pressure in writing intelligence reports to emphasize links between Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda.

We Have a Winner The U.N. has traditionally overseen the reconstruction of war zones like Afghanistan or Kosovo. But in keeping with its unilateral, the-world-is-our-sandbox approach to this invasion, the White House has decided to nail a "Made in the USA" sign on this Iraqi fixer-upper. Postwar Iraq will be rebuilt using red, white and blueprints.

Talk about efficiency: Even as the people of Iraq are girding themselves for the thousands of bombs expected to rain down on them during the first 24 hours of the attack, the administration is already picking and choosing who will be given the lucrative job of cleaning up the rubble. It's the hottest auction of the season.

To further expedite matters, the war powers that be invoked "urgent circumstances" clauses that allow them to subvert the requisite competitive bidding process -- the free market be damned -- and, instead, invited a select group of companies to bid on the rebuilding projects.

And just which companies were given first crack at the post-Hussein spoils? Well, given Team Bush's track record, it will probably not fill you with "shock and awe" to learn that the common denominator among the chosen few is a proven willingness to make large campaign donations to the Grand Old Party. Among them, the bidders -- a quartet of well-connected corporate consortiums that includes Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp. and, of course, Vice President Dick Cheney's old cronies at Halliburton -- have donated a combined $2.8 million over the last two election cycles, 68% of which went to Republicans.

Another reason this war is unwise -- we ought to be fighting our real enemy.

Al Qaeda Near Biological, Chemical Arms Production (washingtonpost.com) Al Qaeda leaders, long known to covet biological and chemical weapons, have reached at least the threshold of production and may already have manufactured some of them, according to a newly obtained cache of documentary evidence and interrogations recently conducted by the U.S. government.

Three people with access to written reports said the emerging picture depicts the al Qaeda biochemical weapons program as considerably more advanced than U.S. analysts knew. The picture continues to sharpen daily, one official said, because translation and analysis of the documents continues, and because the operative captured with them began divulging meaningful information about production plans only this week. Authorized government spokesmen declined to discuss the subject, saying it is classified.

Can you fucking believe this?

ABCNEWS.com Weeks before the first bombs dropped in Iraq, the Bush administration began rebuilding plans.

ABCNEWS has obtained a copy of a 99-page contract worth $600 million.

"We have never in our 40-year history spent this much money in one country in one year," said Andrew S. Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, an independent federal agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the State Department.

The USAID contract is filled with details about plans to construct Iraqi schools, airports, roads, bridges, hospitals, power plants and more.

But other details are being shielded by the USAID, which chose to conduct the bidding in secret.

"It's the scope and breadth that, I think, has made people take a second look at this in terms of the secrecy and the limitations of competition," said Steven Schooner, a law professor at George Washington University.

Normally, USAID puts out contracts on the Internet, and any company can bid. But to move this through quickly, the agency said it went to firms with track records and security clearances. It asked seven — about half the number that normally would have sought the business — to bid.

Among the companies believed to be bidding are Bechtel, Fluor, Parsons, the Washington Group and Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm.

All are experienced. But in addition, all are generous political donors — principally to Republicans.

Mr. Cranky on the dark side of Winnie the Pooh.

Piglet's Big Movie : Mr. Cranky Rates the Movies : Piglet's Big Movie And what of the story's most central character: Winnie-the-Pooh? He is clearly an anal association, a symbol of the surprisingly common dysfunction of defecating during sex. The Journal of Sexual Dysfunction noted recently that among those "engaged in the film industry," an astounding 73% experienced "some form of bowel release during sexual intercourse." In the parlance of underground Hollywood, this has become known as a "Winnie the Pooh," an obvious and rather pathetic attempt to put a positive spin on a profoundly embarrassing act. In the movie's own language, this connection is emphasized when Pooh renames "Pooh Corner," "Pooh and Piglet Corner," thus linking one dysfunction with another and indicating that Piglet can only achieve "usefulness" and "respect" within the confines of his dysfunctional circle of friends. Furthermore, it's important to remember that Winnie the Pooh is a bear who walks around with no pants on. He represents, for all intents and purposes, the castrated male, as he has no sexual organs. If Piglet symbolizes the penis, then "Pooh and Piglet" corner is the reconnection of the castrated man with his disassociated member and the triumph over sexual dysfunction.

I don't know why...
I'm watching Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. In the movie Mike Tyson teaches Mick dundee and his son how to meditate. I shit you not.

Why this war is unwise -- it deepens hatred and suspicion of the USA.

The Arrogant Empire In one respect, I believe that the Bush administration is right: this war will look better when it is over. The military campaign will probably be less difficult than many of Washington’s opponents think. Most important, it will reveal the nature of Saddam’s barbarous regime. Prisoners and political dissidents will tell stories of atrocities. Horrific documents will come to light. Weapons of mass destruction will be found. If done right, years from now people will remember above all that America helped rid Iraq of a totalitarian dictator.
But the administration is wrong if it believes that a successful war will make the world snap out of a deep and widening mistrust and resentment of American foreign policy. A war with Iraq, even if successful, might solve the Iraq problem. It doesn’t solve the America problem. What worries people around the world above all else is living in a world shaped and dominated by one country—the United States. And they have come to be deeply suspicious and fearful of us.

The Independent -- an outstanding editorial.

Argument What we cannot do is share the wish of some protesters that the war is suddenly stopped without a resolution of any sort, an absurdly unrealistic and therefore meaningless aspiration. It is more constructive to focus on the conduct of the war. Most immediately, it is important that Iraqi prisoners of war are treated humanely and that political leaders mean what they say when they insist that the military campaign is carefully targeted. Once the conflict is over, we should turn our attention, in its aftermath, to reconstruction. We welcome Mr Blair's apparent determination to ensure that the UN and the European Union are fully involved in the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq. Whether the US will accept such a proposition remains to be seen. There is little evidence that George Bush and his colleagues have given much thought to what happens afterwards, beyond handing out contracts to their friends in the private sector. The aftermath of war might provide an opportunity for the fractured international community to reunite. More broadly, Mr Blair must repair relations with some of his partners in the EU. This will not be easy after the ministerial onslaught against France but, as the EU Commissioner Chris Patten observed last week, the European project is doomed if Britain and France cannot work together. The Prime Minister should also reflect on the wisdom of his alliance with a divided US administration that, on the one hand, has left the moderate Colin Powell isolated and, on the other, is clearly so diplomatically inept.

Let us hope that this conflict is short, for the sake of the troops and the Iraqi civilians. Let us hope also that the aftermath is handled with much greater skill and sensitivity than the clumsy and confused build- up to an unnecessary war.

This is avery interesting and provocative article on a progresive response to war and post-war.

TAP: Web Feature: Construction Paper. by Nick Penniman and Richard Just. March 21, 2003. Liberals have the skills that will be most needed in nurturing an Iraqi democracy: fostering tolerance and multiculturalism, building mixed and well-regulated economies, creating social safety nets, promoting public health and environmental cleanliness, fighting for civil liberties and beefing up education. Liberals will also be more likely than conservatives to demand that Iraqi oil be turned over to those who rightfully own it, that is, the Iraqi people. Can progressives really afford to leave these important objectives in the hands of Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and their corporate cronies?

Some progressives have contended that liberal nation building doesn't work, but this argument simply doesn't square with the experiences of the last 10 years. Yes, Haiti and Bosnia and Kosovo and Afghanistan continue to experience problems. The operative question, however, is not whether those countries are perfect -- no country, after all, is -- but whether American interventions have in the end left those countries better off than they otherwise would have been. The answer in each case is an unequivocal "yes." Rather than denigrating the concept of nation building, progressives should be trying to figure out how to make it work better so that America will be not be criticized in the future when we employ it as policy. Iraq ought to be the laboratory for proving that nation building -- a concept coined by liberals -- can offer justice to those who have suffered for so long. It is the ultimate policy of optimism and hope, and liberals should invest themselves in proving it can succeed.

Stating the Obvious

I just have to point out the following truisms.

1. No one doubts that the U.S. military can kick Iraq's ass all around the block.
2. No one doubts that Saddam is an asshole.
3. No one doubts that Saddam openly hates the U.S.

However,
4. No one has shown that Saddam is a credible threat to us.
5. No one has shown that he helped engineer 9/11, or even knew about it.
6. No one has shown why he is more deserving of overthrow than, say, Kim Jong Il.

Therefore the only reasons left for attacking him IN DEFIANCE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW are, in order of increasing importance:
A. Arabs attacked us; Iraqis are Arabs -- close enough to vengeance.
B. We fought Saddam once before.
C. Iraq has a lot of oil.

In other words, ethnic prejudice, a history of conflict, and greed. The precise reasons that Iraq invaded Kuwait a dozen years ago.

How is it not obvious to everyone how insane this is? How can the media devout 95% of their time to showing the great imperial war machine's triumph and 5% or less to the outrage sweeping the rest of the world? I just don't know what to do any more.

-- Joel

Paul Krugman on our forgotten domestic problems.

Who Lost the U.S. Budget?
The administration has tried to deny this conclusion, inventing strange new principles of accounting in the process. But the simple truth is that the Bush tax cuts have utterly transformed our fiscal outlook, for the worse. Without those tax cuts, the problems of an aging population might well have been manageable; with them, nothing short of an economic miracle can save us from a fiscal crisis.

And there's a lesson here that goes beyond fiscal policies. On almost every front the outlook for the United States now seems far bleaker than it did two years ago. Has everything gone wrong because of evildoers and external forces? In the case of the budget -- and the economy and, yes, foreign policy -- the answer is no. The world has turned out to be a tougher place than we thought a few years ago, but things didn't have to be nearly this bad.

The fault lies not in our stars, but in our leadership.

Pro-war CNN

Bush can wage war, but if CNN does so, news balance suffers
You might support the war in Iraq. You might believe there's a better way to disarm or displace Saddam Hussein. Patriots of all political stripes have debated -- and will continue to debate -- the complex tangle of threats, promises, brinksmanship and alliances leading up to the conflict.

Just don't expect to hear much of it on the cable news channels.

CNN's coverage has tilted noticeably toward the war in the last few weeks, both in the monochromatic opinions of the majority of its guests and in the unabashed advocacy from some of its own anchors and correspondents.

This is truly unbelievable -- God Bless America (via Eschaton)

Eschaton FRESNO, Calif. (March 20, 2003 8:29 p.m. EST) - Pierre Frik feared if the country went to war in Iraq, he might be targeted by zealots because of his Middle Eastern background.
He never imagined he'd be vulnerable because his chain of stores was named French Cleaners.
The Lebanese native said he only picked the name on a whim, making the Eiffel Tower the stores' logo. But as relations between the United States and France soured over war with Iraq, Frik said he was hit by the backlash.
Customers have spit on checks and passers-by make obscene gestures, he said. On Wednesday, his Modesto store was damaged in a fire. He said he later learned his two other stores had been vandalized.
"We're very concerned about French-bashing going on across the country," French consulate spokesman Yo-Jung Chen said Thursday, in the aftermath of France's threat to block a U.N. resolution authorizing force against Iraq.
Authorities estimated the damage to Frik's Modesto store at $500,000 but declined to classify the blaze as suspicious.

Matthew Engel on Amercian-style democracy in Iraq.

Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Iraq, the 51st state
6. Saddam has been universally seen firing his gun indiscriminately and menacingly. Under the second amendment, this right would be extended to everyone.

7. Saddam has conducted unnecessary and aggressive foreign wars to distract his benighted people from domestic economic collapse. Such behaviour would be unthinkable under American democracy.

8. Under Saddam, prisoners are held secretly and without trial, and tortured to extract information. Ditto.

9. The Iraqi system is largely dynastic and a leader like Saddam can pave the way for his son to attain wealth and power without regard to merit. Same again.

10. Saddam "electronically bugged" UN weapons inspectors, President Bush said in his speech on Monday night. The US has not yet tried to refute the Observer story that it bugged private meetings of other security council members. It's probably too busy to dignify it with an answer.

11. Saddam has also threatened his neighbours. A well-placed source in Chile reports that Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, informed the Chilean foreign minister that, if they didn't do as they were told in the security council, their free trade treaty would not be ratified and loans would mysteriously cease. One small example.

The Independent's very thoughtful editorial on the war.

Argument
However, there is more to this war than that. The liberation of the Iraqi people is, on its own terms, a desirable and laudable aim. The more the Bush administration and its allies focus on the welfare of the Iraqi people, the better it will be. The more this is fought as a war to liberate Iraq, the more its damaging effects, both on Iraq and the rest of the world, can be minimised. The unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state sets an uncertain precedent; but it will be mitigated by the emphasis on Saddam Hussein's tyranny.

We are still nervous of the conduct of the war; but if it is fought on behalf of the Iraqis, there will be all the more pressure to avoid civilian casualties. And if the Americans hand over the task of reconstruction to the United Nations as quickly as possible, that might help to minimise the fanning of the flames of fanatical anti-Americanism around the world.

We can and should be sceptical, therefore, of George Bush's motives. While this conflict may not be "about oil" in the sense that the US wants to steal Iraq's natural resources ? and the coalition's pledge that oil revenues will be used to help fund the reconstruction of Iraq is welcome ? it is likely that the desire to secure diversity of supply is a factor in American thinking. The timetable may have been set as much by next year's presidential primaries as by the desert weather.

Equally, we should be ready for the spin machine as it moves into war mode. It was curious ? as Mr Blix might say ? that yesterday Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, and his US counterparts were warning us that the war might be longer and more difficult than some people think. The reason some people might think that is because, before the shooting started and while the priority was to round up support for military action, Messrs Hoon and Rumsfeld were happy to allow the assumption to spread that Iraqi forces were on the point of collapse. Thus General Sir Mike Jackson, Chief of the Defence Staff, said in a press interview last month he expected the war to be "relatively swift with low casualties".