[Peace-discuss] News notes 030330

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Sorry -- I forgot to post these this week.  --Carl]

	Notes on the week's news
	from the "War on Terrorism"
	for the AWARE meeting,
	Sunday, March 30, 2003

[1] WEEK'S SUMMARY FROM MEDIALENS.ORG.  It's hard to believe that a little
more than one week ago, the Iraqi regime, facing imminent attack, was
meekly dismantling its al-Samoud missiles, presenting scientists for
interview, and allowing hundreds of air strikes to deplete its forces
without reply.  US oil, "defence" and other state-corporate interests had
of course long since chosen war.  Or, rather, they had chosen a "cake
walk" -- a parade of the best firepower money can buy, a travelling arms
fair ensuring that the latest killing machines would be suitably "combat
tested".  US generals talked of "flexibility and responsiveness," British
generals of "niche combat roles."  This sounded disturbingly like the
Total Quality jargon of management consultancy. And now a giant snake of
military equipment lies caked in dust, bruised and battered, its body
wallowing in the blood of innocents.  Suddenly Stalingrad feels like
something that happened only sixty years ago.  There is a palpable sense
of the ghosts of ancient wars looking down grimly on a humbled leviathan.  
It's an old story: supply lines overstretched by overconfidence, state of
the art power shaken by "little people" who weren't supposed to matter,
people who haven't read the script...
	There is no glory here -- US and UK troops have been led into a
nightmare, they are dying for a cause that no one should be asked to die
for.  Can you imagine dying for Bush and Blair?  Can you imagine killing
for them?  Michelle Waters, the sister of a Marine who died soon after the
war began, says of her family: 'It's all for nothing.  That war could have
been prevented.  Now, we're out of a brother.  Bush is not out of a
brother.  We are."  (Quoted, "Media War: Obsessed With Tactics And
Technology," Norman Solomon, ZNet, March 27, 2003.)
	And the people of Iraq -- their soldiers, often conscripts, are
people too -- are being slaughtered in their thousands ... a bombed market
place under an orange sky in a war fought for oil and power ... an
impoverished, speechless market trader trembling amid the body parts ...
The US military does not feel able to shed the blood of thousands of
civilians by bringing its giant, fiery hammers down on urban areas -- they
know the world is watching, they know the world will not tolerate it. They
know this because you and we filled small areas of space with our bodies
on the streets of our cities.  It didn't feel like much at the time. Be in
no doubt, if this had been Stalin or Churchill, if it had been Nixon or
Reagan, Basra and Baghdad would now be rubble.  This could well be
changing "when mighty armies start taking casualties the gloves tend to be
mislaid" and optimism must not stray into naivety, but we must be clear
about one important point: the protests, the concern, the dissent, are
absolutely vital.  They have made a difference...

[2] NYT ("Either Take a Shot or Take a Chance") QUOTES TWO US SNIPERS WITH
5TH MARINE REGIMENT: They said Iraqi fighters had often mixed in with
civilians from nearby villages, jumping out of houses and cars to shoot at
them, and then often running away. The marines said they had little
trouble dispatching their foes, most of whom they characterized as ill
trained and cowardly. "We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We
killed a lot of people" ... Both marines said they were most frustrated by
the practice of some Iraqi soldiers to use unarmed women and children as
shields against American bullets. They called the tactic cowardly but
agreed that it had been effective. Both Sergeant Schrumpf and Corporal
McIntosh said they had declined several times to shoot at Iraqi soldiers
out of fear they might hit civilians. "It's a judgment call," Corporal
McIntosh said. "If the risks outweigh the losses, then you don't take the
shot" ... "We dropped a few civilians," Sergeant Schrumpf said, "but what
do you do?" To illustrate, the sergeant offered a pair of examples from
earlier in the week. "There was one Iraqi soldier, and 25 women and
children," he said, "I didn't take the shot." But more than once, Sergeant
Schrumpf said, he faced a different choice: one Iraqi soldier standing
among two or three civilians. He recalled one such incident, in which he
and other men in his unit opened fire. He recalled watching one of the
women standing near the Iraqi soldier go down. "I'm sorry," the sergeant
said. "But the chick was in the way..." [NYT 0329]

[3] WHAT ARE WE DOING? On Monday the fighting around Nasiriya, Iraq, was
described by a US Chief Warrant Officer: "It's not pretty. It's not
surgical. You want surgical, you should have left the place alone. You try
to limit collateral damage, but they want to fight. Now it's just smash
mouth football." [NYT 3/24] Football metaphors abound.  On the US war
plan, "A few audibles are being called," said deputy secretary of state
Richard Armitage, one of the administration's intellectuals. [PBS 3/25]

[4] FROM RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE. By early Tuessday US experts already call
this war a crisis. "It was enough for the enemy to show a little
resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority
begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by
the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper
weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on
technological whims of the defense industry!" said Gen. Stanley McCrystal
during the same Pentagon meeting. [reverse translation from Russian] Since
the early morning today the coalition high command and the Joint Chief of
Staff are in an online conference joined by the Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld. This meeting immediately follows an earlier meeting last
night at the White House. During the night meeting with President Bush
emergency actions were outlined to resolve the standstill in Iraq. The
existing course of actions is viewed as "ineffective and leading to a
crisis". The Secretary of State Collin Powell warned that, if the war in
Iraq continues for more than a month, it might lead to unpredictable
consequences in international politics. The Chairman of the Joint Chief of
Staff Gen. Richard Mayers reported on the proposed actions and corrections
to the plan of the operation in Iraq. George Bush demanded that the
military breaks the standstill in Iraq and within a week achieves
significant military progress. A particular attention, according to Bush,
should be paid to finding and eliminating the top Iraqi political and
military leadership. Bush believes that Saddam Hussein and his closest
aides are the cornerstone of the Iraqi defense. During today's online
meeting at the coalition headquarters Gen. Franks was criticized for
inefficient command of his troops and for his inability to concentrate
available forces on the main tasks. According to [Russian military]
intelligence Pentagon made a decision to significantly reinforce the
coalition. During the next two weeks up to 50,000 troops and no less than
500 tanks will arrive to the combat area from the US military bases in
Germany and Albania. By the end of April 120,000 more troops and up to
1,200 additional tanks will be sent to support the war against Iraq. A
decision was made to change the way aviation is used in this war. The use
of precision-guided munitions will be scaled down and these weapons will
be reserved for attacking only known, confirmed targets. There will be an
increase in the use of conventional high-yield aviation bombs,
volume-detonation bombs and incendiary munitions. The USAF command is
ordered to deliver to airbases used against Iraq a two-week supply of
aviation bombs of 1-tonn caliber and higher as well as volume-detonation
and incendiary bombs. This means that Washington is resorting to the
"scorched earth" tactics and carpet-bombing campaign. [IRAQWAR.RU 0325]
See http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news078.htm.

[5] BLAME CANADA.  Washington delivered a stern message to Canada on
Tuesday ...  At a breakfast speech to the Economic Club of Canada, Paul
Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, said "there is a lot of
disappointment in Washington and a lot of people are upset" about Canada's
refusal to join the United States in its efforts to depose Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein. [GLOBE AND MAIL 0325]

[6] THE OLD WAR CRIMES ARE THE BEST.  The U.S. Air Force has hit Iraqi TV
with an experimental electronmagetic pulse device called the "E-Bomb" in
an attempt to knock it off the air and shut down Saddam Hussein's
propaganda machine, CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports. The
highly classified bomb creates a brief pulse of microwaves powerful enough
to fry computers, blind radar, silence radios, trigger crippling power
outages and disable the electronic ignitions in vehicles and aircraft.
[CBS 0325] Then they just blew it away, as they diud in Serbia.  (As Ricky
said in his summary, the Chinese embassy better be careful.)

[7] DIDN'T HAPPEN TO BE TRUE... On Thursday British reports say residents
of the southern city of Basra have been rising-up against forces of Saddam
Hussein who were firing mortars at them. British forces are hoping to take
advantage of the uprising to secure the key southern city.

[8] WHO'S COUNTING?  Thus far in the campaign known as Operation Iraqi
Freedom, Americans said they had taken more than 3,500 Iraqi prisoners.
There was no accurate death toll among Iraqi troops or civilians.

[9] OR TEN TIMES AS HIGH... American losses ran to 20 dead and 14 captured
or missing. The remains of the first two to die were flown overnight to
Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. [CBS 0327] But estimate of coalition
casualties based on 4 days reports from this site [iraqwar.ru] are just
over 200 dead, about 25 POWs and close to 1000 wounded. No wonder the
briefings have dropped casualty figures -- it would be catastrophic if
this were known by the US public."

[10] FREE PRESS. Subscriptions to the Arabic-language television network
al-Jazeera have doubled since the war on Iiraq began last week, signalling
a significant demand for an alternative to western media coverage. The
broadcaster said it has signed up 4 million subscribers in Europe since
last Wednesday. It has also launched an english-language website, and
plans an english version of its tv channel. Al-jazeera had around 35
million Arabic-speaking viewers before the start of the war in Iraq but
most were in the Arabic world, where it is shown free. Outside the Middle
East 10 million people had access to the network. The broadcaster enjoys
greater freedom than western broadcasters in Iraq, with eight camera crews
operating outside the confines of the military, and some journalists
embedded with the coalition forces. Although western TV crews remain in
Baghdad, al-Jazeera has the only camera crew known to be operating in
Basra, Iraq's second city. It also has crews in Baghdad and Mosul. An
al-Jazeera crew helped ITN to establish the whereabouts of Terry Lloyd,
the veteran reporter who died after coming under fire on Saturday. He was
taken to a Basra hospital, where al-Jazeera was allowed to film. The
broadcaster has been at the centre of the controversy surrounding the
transmission of footage showing Iraqi and American casualties, which many
western news organisations considered too sensitive to screen. One image
shown repeatedly on Sunday showed the head of a child aged about 12 that
had been split apart, reportedly in the US-led assault on Basra. Other
footage came from northern Iraq, where US missiles had targeted the
Kurdish Islamist Ansar al-Islam organisation. [GUARDIAN 0326]

[11] LOYAL OPPOSITION. Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile, Who Managed Al
Gore's 2000 Presidential Campaign, Says She Backs President Bush's War To
Overthrow Saddam Hussein and wants her party's leaders to project a
stronger message that they support what US troops are doing in Iraq ...
She says top Democrats have tilted too much of their message to curry
favor with anti-war activists, ignoring swing voters and independents, and
have failed to give their rank and file a well-thought-out position on how
to deal with the national security threats posed by Saddam's regime. "We
cannot afford to be talking just to the anti-war people," she said.

[12] WHO CARES? Most speakers in a public session of the UN Security
Council on Wednesday condemned the US-led war on Iraq, noting that it was
not authorized by the council and likely to cause a humanitarian disaster.
[AFP 0326] CNBC anchor: "We know the US has good intentions. We know the
president has good intentions; How do we convince the rest of the world?"
[CNBC 0326]

[13] YOU CAN'T SAY THAT. Comedian Chris Rock has been strongly advised not
to engage in any Bush-bashing during the promotion of his new film Head of
State, the Drudge Report has learned. Rock once said of Bush: "He's not
stupid, he's just drunk," adding, "All the black people who voted for Bush
are both on his cabinet." Dreamworks is preparing to release the comedy on
Friday. There are deep concerns that Rock may unleash a fresh diatribe on
President Bush and the Iraq war, studio insiders reveal, which could
ignite a public backlash and boycott of the film. In the movie, Rock plays
a character who is the Democratic party's choice for its 2004 presidential
nomination. Rock is also director, producer and co-scenarist. "We are
confident Chris knows this is not the appropriate time to make jokes about
war and the president," said one top studio source. "We don't want to get
Dixie-Chicked, or anything like that, out of the gate. We've invested tens
of millions of dollars in the making of the movie and its marketing."

[14] COOKIE JAR. A senior US Democrat has called for an investigation of
Richard Perle, an architect of the war on Iraq, for possible conflicts of
interest in his roles as corporate adviser and Pentagon consultant. John
Conyers, the top democrat on the house of representatives judiciary
committee, asked the pentagon's inspector-general to investigate mr
perle's work as a paid adviser to the bankrupt telecommunications company
global crossing and his guidance on investment opportunities resulting
from the Iraq war. The plan has run into trouble with the Committee on
Foreign Investment in the US. Including Mr Rumsfeld and other top national
security officials, the panel can block mergers and acquisitions it feels
could harm US interests. Global Crossing began talks to restructure the
deal after the committee raised concerns that its network would be
controlled by a company with strong ties to China. Hutchison is
majority-owned by Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing. Mr Perle has said
he would be paid $US125,000 ($210,225) for his advice and another
$US600,000 if the Government approved the deal. [SMH 0326] Perle, a
long-time agent of the Likud-oriented wing of the Israeli-Jewish lobby in
Washington and its Pentagon conduit JINSA (Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs), is said to currently plan to remain on the Panel but
not as its head. He has recently been the subject of considerable media
criticism for his financial conflicts of interest and double-dipping as
well as for his pronounced anti-Saudi regime campaign. Perle is known to
be one of the primary architects of the 'Axis of Evil' school-of-thought;
and at present is known to be pushing hard to get the US to take on Iran,
Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas in the Middle East as soon as Iraq is
conquered. But it is far premature for any rejoycing from opposition
quarters. Though feeling a little heat Perle may well have concluded that
he has already achieved his main goals -- with the Iraq war now raging and
Sharon firmly in power in Israel -- and that not much is now likely to
change in Washington as a result of his personal repositioning at this
point. Perle along with others from the extended-Israeli-Jewish lobby is
also continuing his close association with the right-wing hard-line
American Enterprise Institute (AEI). [MER 0327] while on pentagon board,
perle advised satellite maker facing investigation. [0329]

[15] WHY IS THE NEWS SO BAD? Broadcast news consultants have been advising
news and talk stations across the nation to wave the flag and downplay
protest against the war. "Get the following production pieces in the
studio now: . . . patriotic music that makes you cry, salute, get cold
chills! go for the emotion," advised McVay Media, a Cleveland-based
consultant, in a "war manual" memo to its station clients. ". . . air the
national anthem at a specified time each day as long as the USA is at
war." The company, which describes itself as the largest radio consultant
in the world, also has been counseling talk show stations to "Make sure
your hosts aren't 'over the top.' Polarizing discussions are shaky ground.
This is not the time to take cheap shots to get reaction . . . not when
our young men and women are 'in harm's way.' " The influential
television-news consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates recently put it
in even starker terms: covering war protests may be harmful to a station's
bottom line. In a survey released last week on the eve of war, the firm
found that war protests were the topic that tested lowest among 6,400
viewers across the nation. Magid said only 14 percent of respondents said
TV news wasn't paying enough attention to "anti-war demonstrations and
peace activities"; just 13 percent thought that in the event of war, the
news should pay more attention to dissent. Magid, whose representatives
did not return phone calls, offers no direct advice about what stations
should do. However, the research's implied message reinforces antiwar
activists' assertion that media outlets have marginalized opposing voices

 Among its suggestions for covering the war, the company recently told
clients to "dispatch reporters to military bases in the area. . . . Are
your local Reserve or Guard units involved? Do they have veterans of the
Gulf War still at home?" It also advised clients to find experts in some
30 categories -- including "veterans of Desert Storm," "Former G Men,"
"Military Recruiting Offices" -- most of whom would be unlikely to offer
harsh criticism of the war. "Have at least one expert outside the
broadcast industry as your 'go to' analyst," the company said, adding that
"a former military specialist is ideal, especially with Desert Storm
experience" ... "It's counterintuitive for [talk] hosts and program
directors to pay too much attention to the antiwar movement right now,"
said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a journal for the radio talk
business. "The sense is, if we give too much play to people against the
war, it will hurt in the war effort and the people fighting it." Added
Harrison: "The core [talk] listener is for the war and thinks he's more
patriotic than anyone else. Yes, the peace people are patriotic, too, but
the conservative talk radio listener believes he's more patriotic than the
people protesting the war." [WP]

[16] WE STOLE IT FAIR AND SQUARE. "We didn't take on this huge burden with
our allies without having a significant -- indeed dominating -- role in
post-war Iraq." -C. Powell "But we don't owe Iraq reparations." -D.
Rumsfeld

[17] BELIEVING THEIR OWN FANTASIES. Just three days before Bush gave
orders to fire the first cruise missile, Vice President Dick Cheney was on
television suggesting that a war would "go relatively quickly" and wrap up
in "weeks rather than months." Others predicted a cakewalk. ["How is the
world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and
then believe what they read." -- Karl Kraus 1874-1936]

[18] WHO'S NEXT?  The US said on Friday night military supplies that
threatened the lives of American forces were being shipped to Iraq from
Syria and told Damascus it would be held accountable for "hostile acts."
In a dramatic warning to Iraq's neighbours, Donald Rumsfeld, the US
defence secretary, also said any Iranian-backed forces operating inside
Iraq would be treated as enemy forces.  Mr Rumsfeld said military
supplies, including night-vision equipment, were being shipped across the
Syrian border to Iraqi troops. "We consider such trafficking hostile
acts," he said, adding that the Bush administration would "hold the Syrian
government responsible" for the shipments ... He also said Iraqi Shia
militia based in Iran would be treated as enemy forces if they crossed
into Iraq. The Iraqi Shia forces, which are associated with the Iraqi
exile group SCIRI and backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, have
already started crossing into northern Iraq, where they have close ties
with Kurdish opposition groups. Mr Rumsfeld said he would hold Iran
accountable for movements by the militia, called the Badr brigade ... The
surprise developments came at the end of a week in which relentless aerial
pounding of Baghdad, in which significant numbers of civilians have been
killed, hasprovoked rising anger across the Middle East about the
war.Syria and Iran have both condemned the US-led attack on Iraq ...
Bashar el-Assad, the young Syrian president who resisted US pressure to
cast his country's Security Council vote in favour of the war in Iraq, has
called on Arab countries not to assist coalition troops.  In a clear sign
of the growing nervousness in Damascus, Mr Assad has said he believes
Syria may be next on Washington's list of countries where it would like to
see regime change. [FT

[19] AS FRAN LEIBOWITZ ONCE NOTED, IT'S NOT WHETHER YOU WIN OR LOSE, IT'S
HOW YOU LAY THE BLAME.  Insiders who have spoken with senior Pentagon
officials, particularly the army top brass, said there was growing anger
directed at Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, who, the officials say,
dismissed their efforts to include heavier ground forces in the field
before an invasion. Mr Rumsfeld has denied these accusations, insisting
the war plan followed thorough consultation with senior uniformed
officers. ... [FT] "... Disturbingly, intelligence officials revealed that
military planners and intelligence analysts had warned that the invasion
would face stiff resistance from hard-core paramilitary units but had been
ignored by the Pentagon's more optimistic leadership..." [NYT editorial]

[20] HEADLINE --"Experts: Saddam Trying to Prolong War"

[21] MICHAEL MOORE: "Let's try to get the military to withdraw from the
news media..."

[22] HEY! THAT'S NOT FAIR! The Army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lt.
Gen. William S. Wallace, said today that overextended supply lines and a
combative adversary using unconventional tactics have stalled the U.S.
drive toward Baghdad and increased the likelihood of a longer war than
many strategists had anticipated. "The enemy we're fighting is different
from the one we'd war-gamed against," Wallace, commander of V Corps. [WT
0327]

[23] WHAT THOSE WAR GAMES WERE LIKE - FROM THE GUARDIAN 8 MONTHS AGO,
August 21, 2002:  The biggest war game in US military history, staged this
month at a cost of £165 million with 13,000 troops, was rigged to ensure
that the Americans beat their "Middle Eastern" adversaries, according to
one of the main participants. General Paul Van Riper, a retired marine
lieutenant-general, told the Army Times that the sprawling three-week
millennium challenge exercises, were "almost entirely scripted to ensure a
[US] win" ... The games were designed to test experimental new tactics and
doctrines advocated by the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and were
referred to in Pentagon-speak as "military transformation." The
transformation is aimed at making US forces more mobile and daring, but
Gen Van Riper said that the "concepts" the game were supposed to test,
with names such as "effects-based operations" and "rapid, decisive
operations," were little more than "slogans", which had not been properly
put to the test by the exercise.

[24] SO WHO WROTE THIS MESS? The U.S. military's battle plan for Iraq
began as "a what-if session over beers among a handful of Army majors
nearly 17 months ago," the National Journal reports in a must-read
article. They were all students at the Army's School for Advanced Military
Studies, known colloquially as SAMS, at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where the
Army's most promising planners take a graduate course in strategic
campaigns. The young majors brainstormed about a march on Baghdad to
dispose of Saddam Hussein. In its earliest versions, the plan envisioned a
125-day campaign by a U.S. force nearly twice the size of that now in Iraq

 From the very beginning, he says, the need to synchronize a rapid,
combined-arms campaign to seize the initiative with "shock and awe"
roughly the modern-day equivalent of armored blitzkrieg warfare leapt out
at planners determined to limit the opportunity for Iraqi forces to employ
chemical weapons, wreak environmental havoc, or organize a coordinated
defense. In bullfighter parlance, they wanted to go for a quick kill
before the bull learned the trick of the cape... By far the most dramatic
and disruptive change to the battle plan, however, was Rumsfeld's decision
last November to slash Central Command's request for forces. This single
decision essentially cut the size of the anticipated assault force in half
in the final stages of planning, and it had a ripple effect on Central
Command and Army planning that continues to color operations to this day.

[25] WHY IS THE NEWS SO BAD (II). 15 stories already bungled by the media
[from Greg Mitchell in Editor & Publisher]
	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 (3/22).
	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 (3/24).
	15. A convoy of 1,000 Iraqi vehicles and Republican Guards are
speeding south from Baghdad to engage U.S. troops (March 25).

[26] DAWNING REALIZATION. Captain Patrick Trueman [sic], UK 7th Armoured
Brigade: "We always had the idea that everyone in this area hated Saddam.
Clearly, there are a number who don't."  Russian Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov:  "It is already becoming clear how far removed from reality are
their [US and UK] attempts to present military action against Iraq as a
triumphant march for the liberation of the Iraqi people."

[27] TONY'S LOSING IT.  On Thursday at Camp David, UK PM Blair said,
"We've seen the reality of Saddam's regime: his thugs prepared to kill
their own people, the parading of prisoners of war and now the release of
those pictures of executed British soldiers." [Downing Street withdrew
claims yesterday that two British soldiers were definitely "executed" by
the Iraqis after the family of one of the dead men protested. Adam Ingram,
the armed forces minister, expressed "regret" for the words used by Tony
Blair to describe the fate of the two men.]

[28] A LONELY VOICE IN CONGRESS.  Dennis Kucinich: "This war must end now.
It was unjust when it started last week, and is still unjust today. The
U.S. should get out now and try to save the lives of American troops and
Iraqi citizens. Most importantly, ending the war now and resuming weapons
inspections could salvage world opinion of the United States, which has
been deteriorating since the talk of war began. After all, the greatest
threat to the United States at this time is terrorism, which is breeding
from this war." [CD 0328]

[29] DO IT FOR THE CAMERAS. A thousand members of the 82nd Airborne
parachute in to Kurdish areas in North. They're met by a CNN reporter, who
drove there...

[30] WHO'S RUNNING THIS SHOW?  On Friday evening someone in the US
announces a 4-6 day "pause" in advance to Baghdad. "U.S. commanders have
ordered a pause of between four to six days in a northwards push toward
Baghdad because of supply shortages and stiff Iraqi resistance, U.S.
military officers said on Saturday." [WP 0329]

[31] NO HONOR AMONG THIEVES. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly
rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and
armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq, New Yorker Magazine
reported. In an article for its April 7 edition, which goes on sale on
Monday, the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up
to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply
reduced and got his way. "He thought he knew better. He was the
decision-maker at every turn," the article quoted an unidentified senior
Pentagon planner as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put himself in because
he didn't want a heavy footprint on the ground."  It also said Rumsfeld
had overruled advice from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the
invasion until troops denied access through Turkey could be brought in by
another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance. "They've
got no resources. He was so focused on proving his point -- that the
Iraqis were going to fall apart," the article, by veteran journalist
Seymour Hersh, cited an unnamed former high-level intelligence official as
saying. A spokesman at the Pentagon declined to comment on the article.
Rumsfeld is known to have a difficult relationship with the Army's upper
echelons while he commands strong loyalty from U.S. special operations
forces, a key component in the war. [REUTERS] In the New Yorker, Hersh
quoted the former intelligence official as saying the war was now a
stalemate.  Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been
expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided
bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored
vehicles and other equipment, the article said.  "The only hope is that
they can hold out until reinforcements arrive," the former official said.

[32] THOUGHT EXPERIMENT.  Imagine a force far less than one of the recent
peace demonstrations landing in Corpus Christi, Texas, then advancing
towards Phoenix through sandstorms, bypassing all major conurbations and
occasionally announcing it has successfully seized significant portions of
the deserts of the south west and nervously threatening to declare war on
Mexico if it intervenes.  [COUNTERPUNCH]

[33] DOLPHINS HAVE BIG BRAINS. On Saturday, NPR ran a breathless piece
about how the US Navy was using dolphins to search for mines in Kuwait's
harbor. Takoma, the Navy dolphin trained in the US and deployed in the war
theater, swam away 
 he's AWOL.

[34] LAST WORD TO GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS: "The regime is in trouble and it
knows it."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	New York Times
	March 30, 2003
	Back Off, Syria and Iran!
	By MAUREEN DOWD

We're shocked that the enemy forces don't observe the rules of war. We're
shocked that it's hard to tell civilians from combatants, and friends from
foes. Adversaries use guerrilla tactics; they are irregulars; they take
advantage of the hostile local weather and terrain; they refuse to stay in
uniform. Golly, as our secretary of war likes to say, it's unfair.

Some of their soldiers are mere children. We know we have overwhelming,
superior power, yet we can't use it all. We're stunned to discover that
the local population treats our well-armed high-tech troops like invaders.
Why is all this a surprise again? I know our hawks avoided serving in
Vietnam, but didn't they, like, read about it?

"The U.S. was planning on walking in here like it was easy and all," a
young marine named Jimmy Paiz told ABC News this weekend with a rueful
smile. "It's not that easy to conquer a country, is it?" ...

The hawks want Iraq to be the un-Vietnam, to persuade us that war is a
necessary disciplinary tool of the only superpower, that America has a
moral duty to spread democracy. This time, we crush the opposition
swiftly. This time, the domino theory works in reverse, as repressive
regimes in the Middle East fall in a chain reaction set off by a
democratic Baghdad. Yet in just a week we've seen peace marches, world
opinion painting us as belligerent, and draining battlefield TV images...

Rummy was beginning to erase his fingerprints. "The war plan," he said,
"is Tom Franks's war plan." Tommy, we hardly knew ye...

In their wild dreamscape, the hawks envision Iraq as the rolling start of
a broader campaign to bring other rogue states, like Iran and North Korea,
to heel.

But in pursuit of what they call a "moral" foreign policy, they stretched
and obscured the truth. First, they hyped C.I.A. intelligence to fit their
contention that Saddam and Al Qaeda were linked. Then they sent Colin
Powell out with hyped evidence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Then, when they were drawing up the battle plan, they soft-pedaled C.I.A.
and Pentagon intelligence warnings that U.S. troops would face significant
resistance from Saddam's guerrilla fighters.

FROM RICKY BALDWIN: "...it's going very badly, from anyone's point of
view, in some fairly spectacular ways.  When British troops are already
reduced to digging through rubble for Iraqi Army boots to wear (AFP,
3/27/03) not even a week into the conflict, it brings to mind the knights
in the Crusades boiling to death in their armor." [Cf. opening scene of
Walter Scott's The Talisman.]

  ==============================================================
  Carl Estabrook
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
  office: 217.244.4105 mobile: 217.369.5471 home: 217.359.9466
  academic: <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
  business: <cge at shout.net>
  ===============================================================