From WaPo: Girding against Iraqi attackers who have blurred the line between what's military and what's civilian, U.S. commanders have instructed troops to assume the worst and employ a range of tougher tactics aimed at weeding out and hunting down Iraqi militia, defense officials said yesterday.

From Reuters:

The United States is prepared to pay a "very high price" in terms of casualties to capture Baghdad and oust President Saddam Hussein, 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.

WaPo reports: U.S. Marines captured a huge ammunition depot in south-central Iraq that included 40 warehouses, U.S. Central Command said on Tuesday. The facility compared in size to the ammunition dump at Camp Pendleton in southern California, said a Central Command statement from its war headquarters in Qatar.

This is no Vietnam John Keegan writes in today's Daily Telegraph.

Anti-war Labour MP George Galloway has defended an interview in which he branded Tony Blair and George Bush as "wolves" for committing the "crime" of military action against Iraq.

In an interview for Abu Dhabi TV, the Glasgow Kelvin MP questioned why Arab countries were selling oil to the coalition forces.

And he accused Mr Blair and Mr Bush of lying to the armed forces about the likely length of the war.

Mr Galloway stood by his comments, arguing that the war was illegal - and urged British soldiers to refuse to obey "illegal orders."

(This Is Bristol)

Fox's Pentagon reporter reports three Iraqi generals are in custody. Said to be "Republican Guard, or higher," possibly Special Republican Guard.

Embedded producer Kevin Monahan on Fox News: Saw Viking make an arrested landing on the deck of the USS Constellation. Plane fell off the deck and slid into the Persian Gulf. The two pilots ejected quickly. The Viking bobbed on the water for a few minutes but it sunk. Search and rescue helicopter in the area went to get them. A diver in the water pulled both pilots out of the water who had ejected. One pilot walked off the chopper, the other pilot couldn't, so he went out on a stretcher. The whole operation took 17 minutes.

Update: Fox has footage of rescue chopper as it came back.

Bret Baier in the Pentagon: The Navy says that the brakes didn't work, and the plane caught an edge. They speculate that there was a hydraulics problem.

Related to:US is losing public relations war in Iraq, Australian experts warn
NEAR KARBALA, Iraq, March 31 -- As an unidentified four-wheel drive vehicle came barreling toward an intersection held by troops of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, Capt. Ronny Johnson grew increasingly alarmed. From his position at the intersection, he was heard radioing to one of his forward platoons of M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles to alert it to what he described as a potential threat.

"Fire a warning shot," he ordered as the vehicle kept coming. Then, with increasing urgency, he told the platoon to shoot a 7.62mm machine-gun round into its radiator. "Stop [messing] around!" Johnson yelled into the company radio network when he still saw no action being taken. Finally, he shouted at the top of his voice, "Stop him, Red 1, stop him!"

That order was immediately followed by the loud reports of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of the platoon's Bradleys. About half a dozen shots were heard in all.

Full Story Wapo (thanks Toby)

Front Page, Tuesday's Washington Post:

U.S. soldiers attempting to secure a small river town about 50 miles south of Baghdad today fought the first close-up skirmishes with President Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, elite divisions that U.S. officials said have shifted additional troops southward to bolster Iraqi defenses seeking to repel the 12-day-old American invasion.

The clash involved elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division -- the tip of the U.S. invasion force -- and units from the Nebuchadnezzar Division in Hindiyah, a town along the Euphrates River halfway between the cities of Karbala and Hilla, according to the U.S. officials. The fighting, which involved small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and 25mm cannons, did not mark the beginning of a major U.S. push northward, they said, but nevertheless took the 3rd Division troops to the edge of newly reinforced Iraqi defenses arrayed to block the U.S. advance on the capital.

Story added that Iraqi defenses have been shifted to the south due to "confidence" Baghdad will not be attacked from the north.

Saudi Foreign Minister tells Saddam to leave Iraq.

He said: "If his staying in power (is) the only thing that brings problems to his country, we expect that he would respond to a sacrifice for his country, as he requires any citizen there to ... sacrifice for his country."

CANBERRA (AFP) - The US-led military coalition is losing the public relations war in Iraq although it may be regaining the military advantage, an Australian military expert warned.

Alan Dupont, of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of Canberra's Australian National University (ANU), described the shooting of Iraqi women and children as a publicity disaster for the US-led coalition.

His remarks followed the deaths of seven women and children when US troops opened fire on a civilian vehicle that failed to stop when ordered to do so at a military checkpoint in southern Iraq on Monday.

Full Story

MilitaryAnalysis KUWAIT, March 31 — From the day that he took office as defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld has sought to change the nature of American defense. The military Mr. Rumsfeld wants to build is more mobile, can deliver precision weapons at vast distances and takes full advantage of sophisticated reconnaissance systems.

A final assessment of the strategy will have to await the battle for Baghdad. Mr. Rumsfeld also has defenders who say he is determined to stimulate change and challenge long-entrenched patterns of military thinking, even at the risk of offending retired and active duty generals.

What nobody disputes, however, is that the American force that is fighting in Iraq is fundamentally different from the one used during the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Full Story NYT (Via Google)

While the British believe that all Iraqis captured should be given PoW status, the US has indicated it may wish to declare paramilitaries captured in civilian clothing as the equivalent of illegal combatants from Afghanistan. Although no decision has yet been made, those the British term paramilitaries or irregulars and the Americans call terrorists are being separated from regular Iraqi soldiers. If those detained are eventually classified illegal combatants they could end up at Guantanamo Bay.

Huma Ammash has been profiled by the always excelllent MEMRI. She is the Head of the Iraqi Biological Weapons Program.

By Jon R. Anderson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, March 31, 2003

About a dozen U.S. troops trying to recover an errant Navy cruise missile Saturday were attacked by a mob of angry villagers in eastern Turkey near the Iraqi and Syrian borders.

Hurling eggs and rocks, the mob broke the windshields of four Humvees and injured one U.S. servicemember, said Cmdr. Ike Skelton, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Turkey.

Full Story

Further to an earlier report on Command Post, it now seems that Aussie SAS patrols are stopping westbound traffic.

From the NineMSN (Australia's Nine TV Network):

Australian human shield Donna Mulhearn has fled Baghdad for Amman before what is expected to be a bloody battle for the capital.

The 34-year-old said she and five other people arrived in Jordan on Sunday night
..
Ms Mulhearn said she met Australian SAS soldiers about 200km west of Baghdad at a roadblock, describing them as professional.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Two Kenyan truck drivers feared dead after being captured by Iraqi forces 10 days ago and then shown on television, have been rescued by British troops near a southern Iraq town.

David Mukaria and Jakubu Kamau had been gagged and blindfolded, and repeatedly listened to their captors discuss whether they should be allowed to live.

Bob Arnot from MSNBC, embedded with I MEF, reports that the Marines are encountering success using their light armored vehicles (LAVs), of which, he says, the Fedayeen are terrified, referring to them as "the destroyers". He says the Marines have been taken aback by certain reports (they apparently singled out the BBC) that they have suffered "setbacks" or have slowed down. They maintain that they have been prepared for everything the enemy has thrown at them and that they have "outsmarted" the enemy at every turn. Arnot says that, upon clearing a town, they were cheered by crowds of Iraqis. He also discussed the follow-on work being done by civil affairs teams (local liaison, humanitarian assistance, etc.).

UNABASHED EDITORIAL COMMENT: Semper Fi, Leathernecks!

Unable to entice even one high-level Iraqi military or political leader to defect, the CIA has halted its program designed to turn Iraqi leadership on Saddam. Some of those approached were fearful of retribution or had been rewarded by the regime for past loyalty. But most rebuffed the CIA because of animosity toward the US.

Civilians flee Basra with little more than their lives, not sure whom to trust. Equally wary allied forces continue to engage Iraqi fighters.
They were afraid.

Afraid of Saddam Hussein's troops inside the city who they said were executing people freely, afraid of the forces outside the city whose intentions they did not yet know and afraid of what would come as their supplies of food and water continued to dwindle.

"We have nothing," said Saeed, a young man from the nearby town of Zubayr. He was trying to salvage scrap from a car that was little more that a charred skeleton. "No water, no food, no electricity, nothing."

Full Story St. Petersburg Times
-- Information from the New York Times and Knight Ridder Newspapers was used in this report.

Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003

Main Tools of Iraqi Disinformation:
Staged suffering and grief
Co-location of military assets and civilians
Restricting journalists’ movements
False claims or disclosures
False man-in-the-street interviews
Self-inflicted damage
On-the-record lies
Covert dissemination of false stories
Censorship
Bogus, edited, or old footage and images
Fabricated documents

By Gethin Chamberlain, with the Black Watch, near Basra
31 March 2003

It was the tank crew who spotted them first, four men in civilian clothing jumping out of the back of a pick-up truck carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the heart of Zubayr.

Corporal Mark Harvey was the first of the snipers to react, dropping to his knee and fixing the man carrying the RPG in his sights, one shot, a moving target, the militia man dropping like a stone, dead before he hit the ground. A clean shot to the head.

Full Story Independent UK

Since the start of the war, U.S.-led forces have been bombing targets in and around Baghdad. Below is a look at damage areas in Baghdad caused by those strikes. The satellite images are courtesy of Digital Globe. Pre-strike images were taken on Sept. 2, 2002. Post-strike images were taken on March 27, 2003.

The conflict in Iraq has left the United Nations World Food Programme facing its biggest challenge since the organisation began, its director has said.

James Morris, executive director of the WFP, said that the agency would need up to $1.3bn in order to feed Iraq's 27 million-strong population for the next six months.

Full Story BBC

USAID Website Info

UN Office of the Iraq Program Oil for Food

WASHINGTON The war of words between the United States and Syria escalated on Monday when the Syrian Foreign Ministry said it hoped to "see the invaders defeated in Iraq."
.
The latest bellicose remarks came in response to a speech Secretary of State Colin Powell gave to a Jewish group Sunday night in which he accused Syria of providing "direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein," adding, "Syria bears the responsibility for its choices, and for the consequences."

Full Story IHT

Huda Ammash – The Head of the Iraqi Biological Weapons Program

Huda Ammash is the daughter of Saleh Mahdi Ammash, a former minister of defensewho was allegedly murdered by Saddam Hussein because he was seen as a potential competitor for power.

A senior Fatah commander in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp denied Sunday a newspaper report that claimed he had dispatched hundreds of volunteer suicide bombers to Iraq to fight US and British coalition forces.

In a similar story, Iran on Tuesday strongly rejected allegations of Tehran's financial assistance to resistant Palestinian groups, including the Islamic Jihad.

After the battle, there was a buzz of excitement among the Royal Marines as groups exchanged stories. A physical training instructor sergeant was generally acclaimed after he was hit on his bullet-proof vest by enemy fire. The shot shattered the heavy ceramic plate in his vest but the sergeant continued to fight and even killed his attacker.

A Royal Marine told of a grenade glancing off his helmet and another told of how an Iraqi colonel driving a car with a briefcase full of cash refused to stop and was shot dead. "I didn't know what to do with the money so I gave it to the kids, bundles of the stuff," the Royal Marine said.

From the Telegraph.

Pace's comments Monday were the strongest indication yet from Washington that the March 19 airstrike may have killed the Iraqi leader. The United States struck the bunker with Tomahawk cruise missiles and a new kind of satellite-guided, bunker-busting bomb known as the EGBU-27. AP, via Yahoo.

From The Sun.

Tech Central Station has an article on what a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) is and how it's been used in other wars.

"The Mighty RPG"

The number of daily bombing runs over Iraq by carrier-based jets in the Mediterranean Sea has doubled since the beginning of the war.

Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, the commander of the Norfolk-based Harry S. Truman and Theodore Roosevelt carrier battle groups, said Monday that twice the number of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets are flying combat missions now compared to March 22, the first day of sorties from the Mediterranean.

(Virginia Pilot Online)

Mahmood, 43, knows the empty promises Westerners can make. He learnt English more than 20 years ago when he was employed by an Italian geological firm in Umm Qasr. Afterwards he joined the army – fighting against Iran during the eight years of conflict that killed hundreds of thousands of young men on both sides. He suffered four shrapnel wounds. He also knows the promises of the Iraqi regime.

He said he and his friends wanted to shed the yoke of the Iraqi regime but not to have Washington or London as their new masters. "We don't want Saddam Hussein. We want freedom," said one. "We want government from the Iraqi people."

(Independent.co.uk)

From the Weekly Standard, quoting Mohammed Al-Douri,

You know, anyway I think he is alive, but the question is not there because Iraq is Iraq and Saddam Hussein is the president of Iraq. Now we have to talk about the war against Iraq, against the people of Iraq, not against one person.

Confirmed by the L.A. Daily News in a brief mention at the bottom of the article.

Weekly Standard draws its own conclusions about his evasiveness. Wonder why this isn't getting more play. It seems big to me.

Via Glenn "InstaPundit" Reynolds

UPDATE: My apologies for not mentioning this. This quote comes from "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert on March 30.

From ABC (US): Top House and Senate lawmakers plan to give President Bush far less flexibility than he wants with the funds Congress will provide for the war with Iraq and other anti-terrorism expenses, lawmakers and aides said Monday.

The Republican-run House and Senate Appropriations committees planned to vote Tuesday on separate packages to begin paying for the conflict. Bush requested $74.7 billion last week and asked lawmakers to approve the funds before leaving for their two-week Easter break on April 11.

A U.S.-led assault on a compound controlled by an Iraqi-based extremist Islamic group has turned up a list of names of suspected militants living in the United States and what may be the strongest evidence yet linking Ansar al-Islam to al-Qaida, coalition commanders said Monday.

The cache of documents, including computer discs and foreign passports belonging to Arab fighters from around the Middle East, could bolster the Bush administration's claims that the two groups are connected, although there was no indication any of the evidence tied Ansar to Saddam Hussein as Washington has maintained.

(AP)

From the New York Times: The main column of American marines set to attack Iraq's capital raced northward today, rolling on the country's main highway to within 70 miles of Baghdad and drawing only minimal resistance. The convoy, including dozens of tanks and some 14,000 combat troops, began its journey in the Iraqi desert and ended 40 miles away, along the newly formed front lines that Iraqi soldiers had retreated from just hours before.

From KFOR Oklahoma City / AP: U-S Central Command is confirming the deaths of four Marines in fighting near Nasiriyah. The men were part of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, and were previously listed as missing. A preliminary U-S military investigation found that they were killed last week as their tank crossed an Iraqi river bridge.

A Gannett news report today tells us what we already know: nobody in the Arabic world believes the U.S. is in Iraq for noble reasons. But it's not because we aren't trying to get the message out.

WASHINGTON - Through Arabic satellite TV channels, radio stations and newspapers, the administration's message about the Iraq war - that it's a noble venture to disarm a dictator and free the Iraqi people - is reaching the Arab and Muslim world.

It's just that almost no one believes it.

"It has fallen on deaf ears,'' said Khaled Al-Maeena, editor in chief of Arab News.

U.S. losing battle worldwide on public relations front

This report includes an excerpt of what media in other nations are saying against the coalition efforts.

Cross-posted with op-ed comments Here

From Lebanon's Monday Morning:

The first days of the war against Iraq have revealed many facts: first, the war is not an easy one for the Americans and the British despite their high-tech superiority. Second, the Iraqis are not ready to rise up against the regime. Third, the victory of this war is not based on who is going to win at the end because the balance of power is clear. It is based on time and casualties of the allied forces ...

... The American miscalculation started when they misunderstood Arab psychology. It is not the first time they have made such a mistake. Arabs and Mideasterners do not always react in the same way as Westerners. The Arabs are opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein, but this does not mean they are pro-American. And if the Iraqi opposition is dealing with the Americans today, it is because this is the only way they have of removing the Iraqi president.

This article from the WaPo adds to and clarifies several of today's news items:

American forces battled Iraqi defenders in fierce street fighting 50 miles south of Baghdad on Monday, pointing toward a drive on the capital. Seven Iraqi women and children were killed at an Army checkpoint when their van refused orders to stop, officials said.

American troops and tanks encountered rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire in a dawn raid against Republican Guard defenders of Hindiyah, a key city astride the Euphrates River. Other units fought to isolate Najaf to the south and prevent attacks on U.S. supply lines.

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.

Ha'aretz

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 one of the volunteers' buses was hit in Iraq by a missile from an American plane, 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. Yesterday the United States warned Syria and Iran again not to cooperate with terrorism and with Saddam Hussein's regime.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said at the AIPAC convention on Sunday that Syria will have to make a critical choice: "Syria can continue direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein, or it can embark on a different and more hopeful course. Either way, Syria bears the responsibility for its choices, and for the consequences."

The administration made it clear yesterday that since that equipment delivery from Syria to Iraq - which according to Rumsfeld consisted mainly of night-vision goggles - no further deliveries had been observed.

The dozens of volunteers who first passed from Syria to Iraq came mostly from Lebanon and from the Palestinian refugee camps in it. Damascus let them cross into Iraq through the official border passes, and became the first state bordering with Iraq to permit the passage of volunteers. One of the buses driving the volunteers in Iraq was hit by an American missile and five of its passengers were killed.

Recently, the Syrians invited journalists to two border passes on the Iraqi border, claiming they are closed. Now it appears this was a deception. The volunteers are brought to the border far away from the official crossings and allowed to pass over on foot. Nearby, on the Iraqi side of the border, trucks await them.

The trucks do not go east toward Baghdad but northeast, to the Mosul and Kirkuk regions, on routes still free of American military activity. It is not known who receives these people when they arrive, where they stay or how they are organized.

At first, Palestinians and Lebanese were dominant among the volunteers, but as their numbers increased, the number of Syrians among them grew. Now the stream of volunteers is estimated at thousands. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said in an interview two days ago that some 4,000 volunteers had arrived in Iraq from various Arab states. He did not say where they came from, but it is known that the Iranians, Jordanians and Turks do not permit the passage of volunteers to Iraq.

In the past, America has taken a lenient view of the Syrian aid to Iraq. A few months ago, Haaretz first reported of the Syrian military purchases for Iraq in various East European states. The equipment and weapons reached Syria's Atkia harbor and were transferred in convoys to Iraq. To this day, the exact quantities of arms, tank engines and planes transferred to Iraq by the Syrians are not known.

Washington kept its criticism down because the CIA estimated it was better to receive intelligence from Syria on Al-Qaida activities. Apparently this information helped the Americans in the past to crack Al-Qaida cells in Germany and Spain. After the war started, the Pentagon became more critical toward Damascus and the displeasure was reflected in Rumsfeld's accusations against Syria. However, it is not clear whether the Americans will try to intercept the movement of volunteers to Iraq.

Another take on the "who's-driving-the-plan" debate, this time from the Telegraph:

A debate is raging within the Bush administration over whether the "Powell Doctrine" of using overwhelming force was discarded prematurely by Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary.

Although Colin Powell, the secretary of state, has made no public comment on the matter, his supporters say Mr Rumsfeld was guilty of hubris in failing to commit more troops to the Gulf.

"Capt. Chris Carter winced at the risks his men would have to take. Engaged in a lightning-fast raid for this Euphrates River town, they were battling for a bridge when - through the smoke - they saw the elderly woman. She had tried to race across the bridge when the Americans arrived, but was caught in the crossfire."

AP Article

Peter Arnett, the American reporter fired by MSNBC and National Geographic earlier today has reportedly been hired by the Daily Mirror (Fox News and now WaPo).

Link is Washington Post. Thanks "bekker" for the link.

Also here is a link to comments on this subject at my personal blog.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Monday he has told the families of two missing Newsday journalists last seen in Baghdad that he would try to help track down their whereabouts.

AP Article.

From the New York Times:

The United States, through its past acts, is largely to blame for the failure of Iraq's Shiite majority to rise in revolt against Saddam Hussein, a senior military commander at the United States Central Command said here today.

The Guardian is reporting that Secretary of State Colin Powell will travel to Turkey and Brussels, Belgium, for talks on the war with Iraq and postwar reconstruction of that country.

From WaPo:

A U.S.-led assault on a compound controlled by an Iraqi-based extremist Islamic group has turned up a list of names of suspected militants living in the United States and what may be the strongest evidence yet linking Ansar al-Islam to al-Qaida, coalition commanders said Monday.

Brit Hume is interviewing Ralph Peters right now.

The Defense Department is drafting a plan that would bar major international oil companies from helping reconstruct Iraq's oil fields if they already do business in neighboring Iran, according to U.S. officials and Middle East analysts.

The plan - should it become President Bush's formal policy - appears certain to further anger European nations that already are upset that their companies have been frozen out of other major reconstruction contracts in favor of U.S. firms.

(Knight Ridder)

George Galloway MP declared a traitor by The Sun for backing Saddam.

After falling short in the Security Council, Arab envoys decided on Monday to seek an emergency session of the 191-nation U.N. General Assembly to revive their campaign for an immediate end to the war in Iraq.

"The point of the request is to save the lives of Iraqi civilians," one Arab diplomat said.

"We will ask for a cease-fire and a return to peaceful disarmament in Iraq," said the envoy, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Unlike the 15-nation Security Council, whose resolutions can be binding under international law, the General Assembly can make only political statements expressing the sense of the international community.

(Reuters)

Video is available online of the firefight mentioned here (and here, and on Fox) earlier:

Long, slightly edited but voiceover-free footage

A little more, plus repeats with voiceover commentary

Greg Kelly finally checks in to explain it all

Apparently, the Saudis are having a hard time maintaining their American hardware now that their American mechanics are a little busy elsewhere...

ARAB NEWS: Fighter Jet Catches Fire

A Saudi Royal Air Force F-15 C fighter jet caught fire yesterday while attempting to take off from an air base in the northwest of the Kingdom, but the pilot escaped unhurt, the Defense Ministry said. The plane lost its nose wheel and the fuselage scraped along the runway sparking a blaze, a ministry spokesman said in statement quoted by the Saudi Press Agency.

“The pilot managed to get out of the aircraft which was loaded with ammunition,” the statement added. The plane, from King Faisal Air Base near Tabuk, was setting off on a “routine patrol” inside the Kingdom, the official said.

Instead of using an F-15, maybe the Saudi pilot should have just used a boxcutter to borrow a jetliner to do his patrol?

After beefing up checkpoints, establishing wider perimeters, and enacting shoot-first-ask-questions-later tactics to defend against further suicide attacks...

WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. troops kill seven Iraqi women and children at checkpoint near Najaf, military official says.

Another source: Sky News

CNN says that there were 13 in the van: 7 dead and 2 wounded... and were they all wearing their seat belts?

Watch for it to be called a massacre, mass-murder, and a mosque with a large basement full of rocket-launchers to be built on that site.

Here is an update about the 82nd Airborne Division units, known as the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, currently in Iraq. Their current mission centers upon disrupting paramilitary forces from using the city of Samawah as a base to attack Coalition supply lines.

The troops have reportedly faced several firefights and the use of converted vans as mobile mortar units. So far, the only casualty has been one soldier who was wounded in the face.

Graphic and post inside:

update: Given the amount of email I’ve received on this post, I’ve updated the picture to more clearly show that the data only goes to 1990. This is why you may see news information about weapons provided by firms from other countries (e.g., Jordan, Germany, etc.) that is not captured here. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) only felt confident in their information up to 1990. After Saddam invaded Kuwait, any and all arm trades to Iraq would be a violation of the United Nation sanctions. Obviously, these sellers did everything possible to hide these sales and SIPRI certainly does not have all of this information.

In addition, SIPRI does not try to show which weapons are more effective. SIPRI calculated the dollar amount of all weapon transfers (in 1990 dollars). So in terms of dollar value, Russia was responsible for 57% of all weapon sales to Iraq between 1973 and 1990.

Some good scrapers of the official media:

News Now | 1st Headlines | Risq.

FoxNews article:

For British soldiers fighting in Iraq, the code names involved in their mission are hard to forget — for anyone who has ever seen a James Bond movie. By alluding to James Bond, its star Sean Connery and some of the heroes and villains in the 007 movies, British commanders have several goals in mind. They include confusing the enemy, helping British soldiers remember the code words and boosting military morale with a little humor.

By contrast, American code names in the Persian Gulf — such as "Operation Free Iraq," "Enduring Freedom" and mission titles like "Noble Eagle" and "Valiant Strike" — seem aimed at inspiring support. In general, the British don't use "Operation Free Iraq." Their version of that name is "Operation Telic," featuring a little-known word derived from the Greek that means "aim," "purpose" or "ultimate end."

I have a cunning plan, Sir.
Carry on, Baldrick.

"A big, big, big cloud of smoke is coming out of the compound. Maybe they are using bigger bombs than before," Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said late on Monday

The official word from National Geographic

National Geographic has terminated the service of Peter Arnett. The Society did not authorize or have any prior knowledge of Arnett's television interview with Iraqi Television, and had we been consulted, would not have allowed it.

via R. Pollman

Pontifex, a Marine with a weblog, has updated his:

This is, really, war. It’s not a turkey-shoot. It’s not some misadventure. And we’re not at the two week mark yet.

Can we stop the postmortems already? Peter Arnett is already declaring this thing a failure on Iraqi television. And that’s a damn shame, because I live my life in constant need of approval from Peter Arnett.

Germany has sent further soldiers to Kuwait to protect American and Kuwaiti installations from chemical and biological attacks. The government has stressed that 'they will have nothing to do with the ongoing war in Iraq.' - Deutsche Welle reports (already old news, but it may be new to you..).

Angela Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, stands behind the United States in its war against Iraq. But many members of the party do not, and they have let her know it - Deutsche Welle reports.

"American patrols were said to be probing the defences of the capital, some crossing the "red line" supposedly drawn around city by Saddam marking the point he will use chemical weapons if the coalition forces advance beyond it." - a report from ThisisLondon.

From Fox News:

Trading fire with Iraqis hidden behind brick walls and hedges, U.S. Army forces spearheading the drive on Baghdad battled their way into this town 50 miles from the capital Monday and captured dozens of members of Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guard.

A new low? From Yahoo! News/AFP:

Three US troops were wounded, one seriously, after Iraqi soldiers used a Red Crescent ambulance to stage an attack in southern Iraq, an AFP correspondent reported.

For an overview of this Monday read Reuters snapshot, the Iraq latest at-a-glance of the BBC and the Iraq Special Weapons News of GlobalSecurity.

This morning's orders from the United States Supreme Court included a rejection of an appeal by a man trying to hold Iran accountable for the killing of his daughter in a Middle East terror bombing. <Via How Appealing>

MSNBC reporting that 7 women and children killed when a van tried to run a US checkpoint...briefing soon from spokesmen in Qatar

See extended remarks for notes captured from live speech.

An honor to be at one of nations busiest ports in one of nations greatest cities.

Philly speaks to our economic might, proud history.

We still believe that all men are created equal and have the right to be free. True for Americans, true for men and women in Iraq

We know that liberty must be defended by every generation

Today in ME this generation is fighting bravely in the cause of freedom, includeing the US Coast Guard

The men and women of our Coast guard are once again showing we are always ready

Always ready to place your countires safety above your own.

America is grateful.

People of Pennsylvania trained Tom Ridge well.

Gals to be with the men and women who proudly wear the uniform of the Coast Guard.

Thanking Customs and immigration folks. Thanks to Red Cross volunteers.

Lot of room for opportunity for volunteer service. Neighborhood level. Happening all across America.

Manny Greenwald - US Coast Guard auxiliary - Manny is on 92 years old, still workin hard.

Time of great consequence for our country. Men and women from all over, with the coalition fighting dangerous regime, liberating oppresed people. 11 days since the major ground war began. Our troops performing bravely, they make us proud

In 11 days taken control of most of southern and western Iraq, seized key bridges, delivering tons of humanitarian aid. Quick and decisive action preventing Saddam from trashing country, preventing dangerous scud launches.

Day by da we are moving closer to Baghdad, day by day closer to victory.

Our victory will mean the end of a tyrant whio rules by fear and totrue. Remove a sponsor of terror.

When victory comes it will be shared by the long suffering peoples of Iraq who desrve dignity

The dicatator has ruled by fear, to the end. Iraqis ordered to fight and die, or pressed into service by threats against their childresn. Refugees have been shot in the back. Hospitals and schools used as bases, those that show friendship have been murdered. For more than 2 decades. No surprise that fear runs deep.

Pledge to Iraqis : We are coming to end the rule of your oppressors, to bring food, medicine, we will not relent, will not stop until your country is free.

Coast Gueard playing a critical role in Iraqi Freedom. Over a thousand members guarding ports, oil rigs, and prisoners. America appreciates your service

Servic in home waters more important than ever

Rescue fishermen, interdict drugs and smuggling. Important mission now - defending America against attack. In the finest tradtion of the Coast Guard you are rising to the task. 90% of our trade and combatr materials move by sea.

Your job is essential to our national security and economic security.

Coast Guard funding is at 6 Billion, highest ever. Investing in new technology, and new coast guard vessels. Giving the Coast Gueard new resoirces, supporting the men and women that guard us all.

We know our enemeies are dangerous, the dying regime in Iraq may bring terror to our shores or others may think it time to strike, Theya are wrong.

We are hunting them down one at a time, finding them interrogating them, and bringing them to jsutice.

We will end the Iraqi regime, ally of terror groups.

We launched Liberty Shield to safeguard America
-greater security measures at borders and ports
-added rcce aircraft to border areas
-friends and immigrant swelcome, terrorists and criminlas will be kept out.

Strengthening protection to transportation
-restricting flight paths
- restricitng hazardous materials movements

Increased surveillance of suspected terrorists
-suspected Iraqi intel agents kicked out
-interviewing Iraqi born folks voluntarily

Guarding our nnations important infrastructure with increased vigilance
-chemical plants, nuclear power plants, power grids

Increased our public health vigilance and preparedness
-greater inspections of crops and food storage

We will not wait for our enemies to strike before we take action. They won't plot while we do nothing

We are removing a grave danger to all nations. By acting today we are saving countless lives in the future.

We have a just cause to guide us. We have the strength and character of the men and women who serve us.

By your skill and by your courage we will prevail.

"He cried because he was alive. He cried because his family may think he's dead. He cried for his country. He cried because — for him — the war was over." - a story on MSNBC/AP.

In addition to the report on Iraqis afraid the coalition forces will give up the fight cited by Garbiel Syme below, readers may also want to view the Arab News report on Iraqis terrified of Saddam.

Chillingly illustrative: A young man who attended a rally expressing support for Saddam Hussein was quoted off-camera as saying, "There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow as Baath go house to house killing anyone who voiced opposition to Saddam. In public, we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else."

The Arab News tends not to be aggressively pro-American in its reporting, which makes these stories somewhat surprising.

President Bush, wearing Coast Guard jacket, speaking in Philly on Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, airstrikes in progress in Baghdad...

(Via MSNBC)

Fox: There are wire reports of a car attack on the British embassy in Tehran. Unclear if it was terrorism or if anyone was hurt.

Update: The Associated Press reports:

A car crashed into the gates of the British embassy on Monday night, bursting into flames and killing its driver.

The full AP report:

Car Hits British Embassy Gates in Iran
10 minutes ago

The embassy was the scene of a large anti-war demonstration on Saturday. During the protest, demonstrators threw stones that broke some embassy windows and police fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd

(via MSNBC Coverage)(Typed as briefing in progress, apologies for length)

Spokeswoman Tory Clark reports continued good progress, within 50 miles of Baghdad, approaching on three axes. Oil fields being secured. Terrorist camp taken

Seen neither Saddam's hide nor hair except on tape, and no sight of his sons.

None of the predicted disasters have happened. Could be tough days ahead.

Iraqis violating Geneva Convenetion, we are threating them humanely, and additionally are already distrubuting relief to civilians.

Related the surrender of two trained suiside bomber as result of Free Iraqi fighters.

Gen. McChrystal reports 300,000+ forces deployed. Capture of additional bridges over rivers. Air campaign continues on Iraqi forces and C2 nodes. 700+ Tomahawks fired to this point.

See extended for continued scan----

Photo evidence of pinpoint strikes with lack of collateral damage. Video of an A-10 striking a bunker near H2 airfield. Second video of A-10 30mm Gatling attack of vehicles on road. Third video F-18 rockets near Al Amarah.

Q. Evidence of Saddam's family trying to flee?

A: We've seen reports of family members of very senior officials fleeing. Several different reports, not media.

Q: Question challenged 300K members deployed

A: Thats an aggregate coalition total.

Q: 3000 PGM's dropped?

A: lots of sorties

Q: Percentage on Baghdad?

A: get back to you

Q: Torture chambers found? Any info?

A: no info on torture of Americans, but many additional reports in the past

Q: What kind of ordinance the B1/B52 dropping?

A: No carpet bombing, variety of ordinance

Q: Degradation of RG units? Movement

A: Seeing degradation and movement to reinforce attrited forces.

Q: Armor in civilian areas a problem?

A: Yes, but we'll still go after it

Q: Combat this morning?

A: No commentary for ongoing ops

Q: Any actions to block retreating forces from falling back int o Baghdad?\

A: We engage em where we find them

Q: Supplies (night vision from Syria)

A: no information

Q: How about the Brits?

A: Brits are doing a fantastic job

Q: Iraqis strong in Basra?

A: Too early to characterize. The Iraqis are using humanshields etc

Q: Can you characterize how the Iraqis are supplying their troops?

A: They're having difficulty. Once you get into it, the effectiveness drops as systems are broken (C2 supply)

Q: Planned follow on forces? Why are you sending? Role, mission?

A: The plan has a 'flow' that could be shut if necessary. The way it designed if combat not required flow could be adjusted.

Q: What will they be doing when they get there?

A: Whatever is needed when they get there.

Q: Any Chems found? If not, know where they are? Concerned the Air attacks might hit storage, toxic plume?

A: No locations found to date, believe they have the capability and intent to use. We are targetting via a number of methods to prevent their use. Carefully targetting suspected storage to prevent a disaster. Can be delivered by a variety of means (car, garbage truck) we must stay vigilant.

Q: Whats going on in Western Iraq?

A: Combination of special forces supported by air and info ops. Area denial mission in progress, able to move at will. Cutting lines of communication and raids of interdicition. In addition to counter SCUD we have denied Iraqi capability to operate in the West.

Q: Status of Med ships and Red Sea, will they come around?

A: Future ops, no answer

Q: Tomahawk shooters?

A: Thats up to Gen Franks.

Q: 800 tlams to date, any pause for resupply?

A: 700 to date, we resupply all the time.

Q: Has the 'tipping point' been reached in Basra and An Nasirtiya?

A: Don't see it yet, but significant weakening of RG units.

A: Put yourself in Saddams shoes, we're coming from all directions, but tough times ahead. Regime will fall. Inevitable outcome more than a feeling.

Q: Terrorist facility in N. Iraq, exploitaion?

A: We have a significant size force, exploitation in progress.

Q: 101st briefed to be on alert for chems, be alert for specific types of vehicles. Words?

A: No words on specific report, general posturing for heightened possibility as we approach heart of the regime.

Q: Forces from the North? Can you elaborate?

A: No elaboration, but pressure bearing down.

Q: Civilian casualties?

A: Don't have those numbers. Numbers inexact.

==End of Briefing===

The New Yorker has just posted JLA's latest dispatch from Baghdad (I posted a link to his prior dispatch on TCP several days ago). It is a lengthy first-person account of the first week of the war, and you can read it here.

At about 2 p.m., I stopped by the press center at the Ministry of Information, an ugly brown concrete building with antennas and anti-aircraft guns on the roof. Journalists were milling around in a confused manner, and then began piling on board a couple of buses. Press-bus trips are usually inspection tours of freshly bombed sites involving civilian casualties. We are never shown damage done to military installations, or to buildings in the Presidential complex. There is little advance warning of these tours, and rarely any information given about the destinations. Minders or ministry officials merely hint about going to see a school or a hospital or a bomb site.

Reuters update on status of reported expulsion of Geraldo Rivera from Iraq.

I just wanted to remind folks about TheBrave, a listserv for Jews with family members in the US military.

The Daily Telegraph asks Robin Cook MP if he has really thought through his request for the recall of UK troops.

(Via Reuters)

Looks like someone in Swaziland has picked up on Geraldo's "Afghanistan Gambit" for the Iraq war:

Listeners to Swaziland's state-run radio station thought it had its own correspondent in Baghdad covering the war -- until legislators spotted him in parliament at the weekend.

"Why are they lying to the nation that the man is in Iraq, when he is here in Swaziland, broadcasting out of a broom closet?" MP Jojo Dlamini demanded of Information Minister Mntomzima Dlamini in the House of Assembly on Monday.

The minister said he would investigate the matter.

Announcer Phesheya Dube gave "live reports" purportedly from Baghdad last week. Programme host Moses Matsebula frequently expressed concerns about Dube's wellbeing and once advised him to "find a cave somewhere to be safe from missiles".

The station declined to comment and referred questions to the ministry.

Iraq may be using Syria to hide forbidden long-range surface-to-surface missiles and chemical and biological weapons, the head of the Military Intelligence research unit told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser told the committee that the likelihood of an attack on Israel was still low, given the current situation, but warned that this could change in a very short space of time, for example, if coalition troops found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or carried out a significant attack on a leading Iraqi official.

From Ha'aretz

Via the Washington Post, they've begun to visit Iraqi POWs.

Still waiting for permission to visit American POWs.

Rivera has appeared on FoxNews from inside Iraq as recently as about 1:00 PM ET, to deny reports from other media that he was being expelled. But Reuters has published reports (11:53 AM) quoting Deputy Sec. of Defense for Public Affairs Bryan Whitman saying "we understand he is being removed from Iraq."

At 12:51 PM ET, Agence France Presse ( see Yahoo) published a quote from military spokesman Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Owens on Monday, contacted at Central Command headquarters in Qatar: "I can confirm that it has been done."

FoxNews.com's Correspondent Tracker doesn't track Geraldo, but it apparently never has.

UPDATE: Reuters now (1:33 PM ET) says Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman has amended his earlier statement, saying that Fox has agreed to remove Rivera.

Fox embed Greg Kelly was caught in the crossfire and was injured. They are expecting him to come on the air and report (!) at some point. They have some footage on. "He caught some glass in the face, not in the eye. He's OK. We'll talk to him later."

Update: Kelly is on TV and looks fine. "We were in the same spot shooting b-roll picutre....mortar blew both of us away...camera broke into pieces. [Photog] Mal James hurt his kinee...after 30 minutes down we were OK... One soldier was shot in the leg, but he's OK and joking around."

Iraqi commanders are pulling troops out of the north of the country to back up Republican Guard units crippled by days of U.S. attacks in the south, defense officials said Monday.

And U.S. forces are doing what one senior Pentagon official called "aggressive armed reconnaissance" in a number of areas rimming the southern approaches to Baghdad in what could be a prelude to the battle for the capital.

(AP)

The International Committee of the Red Cross issues a daily bulletin on relief efforts.

Civilians fleeing Iraq's main southern city of Basra said increasingly desperate Iraqi fighters were preparing for a last stand against a swelling force of British troops and tanks being readied to fight their way in.

Many of the hundreds streaming out of the city over a bridge leading south said the Iraqi soldiers, paramilitaries and Baath party members loyal to President Saddam Hussein who have held off the coalition forces since the start of the war nearly two weeks ago were trying to stop the exodus.

(Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States - an independent, bipartisan commission created in late 2002 by Congress and the President to prepare a "full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks" - is holding its first public hearings today and tomorrow in New York, with live webcast.

A group of web site managers, in conjunction with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, has been conducting a campaign to educate the public about the possibilities for democracy in Iraq, and to express public support for this cause.

Those participating in the project are displaying the following image and hyperlink on their web sites:

A list of web sites in support of democracy in Iraq has been published today. Over 150 sites are listed so far as participating in the campaign, including professional sites, personal sites, and weblogs. The campaign is still soliciting individuals, groups, and organizations to participate in the online campaign. Simply go to the campaign web site for information on how to participate.

Iraqis Welcome U.S. Marines in Shatra

SHATRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iraqis shouting "Welcome to Iraq" greeted Marines who entered the town of Shatra Monday after storming it with planes, tanks and helicopter gunships.

"There's no problem here. We are happy to see Americans," one young man shouted.

"It's not every day you get to liberate people," said one delighted Marine.

British troops have discovered a huge cache of munitions in cases marked "Jordan Armed Forces" just outside Basra.

A Reuters team filmed and photographed the cache, around 5 kilometres east of Iraq's second biggest city, and on Monday local time British bomb disposal experts prepared to blow it up.

(Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The FindLaw site of legal news and commentary has a section on the Iraq war, with news feeds, commentary, weapoins inspection resolutions, international and US law documents related to war, specific war-related cases, and a message board. For example, Here are coalition rules for embedded journalists. Here is an essay on "The Limits on How POWs Can Be Portrayed - And Why Both Iraq and Embedded Journalists May Be Testing Them."

The Jurist site also has a large section devoted to legal aspects of the war. For example, there is a link to live video of The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States first public hearings today in New York.

Courtesy of the law school of Lewis and Clark College, this page of links about the Iraq war includes many news outlets and wire services, pro and antiwar sites, and many blogs, including Command Post.

In the Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes has first hand knowledge that a few more of those threatening Iraqi missiles are getting through than CENTCOM is admitting publicly:

The problem became clear, to me at least, last Thursday night. I was taking a short break from writing, standing out on the balcony of the apartment we have rented here, about 20 kilometers south of Kuwait City. I heard what sounded like a low-flying aircraft zipping across the tops of the buildings in our complex. Other planes had flown over, returning south to ships in the Gulf, but this one was significantly lower, and consequently, much louder than the others.

Moments later, I saw a blinding flash of light across much of my field of vision. The incongruity of lightning on a clear, starry night registered just before the ground-shaking boom that sent papers from the coffee table onto the floor.

US Marines pushing through to Baghdad get a crash course in Iraqi culture as they struggle to distinguish between civilian friends and foes.

Geraldo Rivera is with the 101st Airborne reporting this very moment from a town "about 60 miles from Baghdad" in Iraq.

UPDATE: At the end of the piece he called rumors he had been ejected from the country "a pack of lies," attributed possibly to his former network trying to sully his name.

(via Al Bawaba)

At least two US soldiers killed near Najaf; US Army sets up roadblocks in Western desert
U.S. Marines try to assassinate top Iraqi officials in the south

And on the lighter side...
Scenes of Iraqi children and civilians massacred leads Egyptian actors into severe depression
War cancels Shakira's scheduled concerts in the Middle East

A moderately technical primer on American artillery.

As heard on the John Gambling show (770 WABC talk radio -- You can listen in via webcast here):

Two Iraqi ultralight planes were able to sweep over coalition forces; US soldiers were unable to shoot them down as authorization wasn't given in time.

Update (Apology): Rand Simberg already covered this, and more info about the planes can be found here (thank you DSmith)

China temporarily shut down an oil pipeline to North Korea to convey dissatisfaction with NK's aggressive nuclear weapons posture.

"We can't afford to shield North Korea any longer," Zhu Feng, an international security expert at Beijing University, said in an interview last month. "There is increasing recognition here if North Korea is finally armed with nuclear weapons, it will be a big threat to China."

. . . "When the administration started this war in Iraq, they sent a message to countries who have or have had conflicts with the U.S., a clear message: The U.S. is not a paper tiger, it's a real tiger. And also that as a major power, the U.S.'s voice and principles should be listened to closely," said Zhang Liankui, a Central Party School professor. "If the U.S. quickly finishes this war successfully, the North Koreans will be more cautious in the future." . . . if the war goes badly, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il may feel he has the upper hand with the Bush administration, since waging a war on the peninsula would be far more difficult for the United States than a conflict in Iraq.

From VOA:

United Nations relief workers are making plans to return to Iraq in April to revive the food aid system. The World Food Program said it needs $1.3 billion to kick-start the emergency aid distribution.

icBirmingham reports:

Two British soldiers have been sent home from the Gulf for refusing to fight in a war involving the deaths of civilians, according to a solicitor who advises troops.

A round-up of links about Ansar al-Islam, the Islamist group in northern Iraq destroyed by Kurdish and American forces last week. Ansar al-Islam had links to both Al-Qeda and Baghdad.

Iraq says it has killed 43 Coalition soldiers in the last day.

The country's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said 13 tanks had been destroyed, along with four Apache helicopters, several drones and armoured vehicles.

A blogger wonders why different forces use different types of parachutes. The comment thread has answers.

The latest from Captain Steven, cross-posted on my blog.

Respite

Some people love to sleep. It's like a hobby for them. For me it's always been something you had to do between what was important or necessary. Not here though. Not any more.

Now I anticipate sleep with longing. In the microsecond after my head hits the pillow and before I am unconscious, the thought that I am about to go to sleep fills me with happiness. I've asked around and discovered that I'm not alone in this. In fact, sleep is now a favorite topic of conversation around here. Everywhere you go people ask each other, "You getting any sleep?"

As always, I tell you these little details half-afraid that you'll think I'm complaining. We know how good things are for us here. We got a message today from one of our brothers on the ground. He's been forward deployed since well before the war began. He tells us he and a buddy take turns sleeping in the back of their HMMWV, (HumV) and haven't had a toilet or a bed at their disposal for two months. They are constantly on the lookout for snipers. They are never clean and always tired. Yes, we know we have it easy.

We do engage in our share of grousing. We describe our little oasis here by saying things like, "All the benefits of incarceration without the inconvenience of a trial" and we fuss at the little indignities forced upon us by close quarters. It's a fine tradition among American fighting men and women. It strikes me though, that it stops the moment we step to our jet. When we're working long hours and flying in harm's way - when you'd expect to hear complaints - there are none. Absolutely none.

That makes me wish America could see her sons and daughters as I see them here. We depend on a well-educated professional corps of enlisted people. They carry the draft horse's share of the war, and they do it with a quiet competence that fills me with hope for America's future. If you could see them here your worries about generation X, the effects of MTV and Hollywood, all these would be replaced by a sense of pride and confidence. They are so smart and so good at what they do. If at their age I'd had their work ethic, their understanding of the world, and their willingness to make it better, I'd be a far better man than I am today. I at least have the privilege of witnessing it in them.

Our example of wartime sacrifice has been the generation that fought the Second World War. I won't even try to compare the sacrifices they made to what we're making now. There is no comparison. But I'd like to point something out. In those days of clarity, the men and women the nation admired most heard their nation's call, dropped what they were doing and signed up for service. People who had brilliant careers and plenty of money and who could probably have avoided it were among the first at the recruiters' desks. Movie stars and musicians set the example. This generation of kids who serve do so in spite of the example set by our cultural icons. I think that says a lot about them.

We have representatives of all continents and races on our crew. We weren't filling quotas. It just worked out that way. And I'm glad to tell you that if any motto describes the way we work together it's "E Pluribus Unum," out of many, one. Out of many backgrounds, personal preferences, private desires - an unbending drive to do the mission, and do it better than anyone else. I think I've told you before. I'm very proud to work with these people.

Thank you for your prayers.

Steven

Mon March 31, 2003 10:06 AM ET

AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar (Reuters) - U.S. special forces are in control of movement across Iraq's western desert, a senior U.S. commander said on Monday. "We are denying freedom of movement throughout the western desert and are being very effective at it," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told a news briefing in Qatar.

U.S. officials have said two airfields in the western desert were seized by U.S. forces in the early stages of the war

"I was flipping through the cable news channels and came across someone who was sadly reporting that only about 34 percent of the country now thought the war was going well. That 34 percent number was shocking. So I looked it up. Here's the scoop: The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll asked: "How would you say the war with Iraq has gone for the U.S. so far: very well, moderately well, moderately badly, or very badly?" As the commentator suggested, 34% said "very well." But what he neglected to say was that 51% said it was going "moderately well." Put together, fully EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT of those polled had a favorable view toward the conduct of the war. By the way, the most recent CBS/NY Times poll--not exactly two news organizations with a reputation for being in the employ of the Bush White House--asked the same question and came up with 84% (32% very well, 52% somewhat well)." [WSJ]

In a front page article today, Le Monde reports that 78% of the French public disapprove of the war on Iraq. Fifty-three percent say they "totally disapprove."

UPDATE: Here's the Reuters story about the poll in English. Thanks Kendall.

A third say they are "on the side of the United States." A quarter report they are "on the side of Iraq."

A small majority, 53% "wish for a victory by the United States."

Results from an Ipsos poll commissioned by Le Monde and French TV station TF1.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission)

British soldiers poised to invade Iraq's major southern city of Basra let a mob loot the local Baath party headquarters on Monday local time to show the US-led war was aimed at helping civilians and ridding the country of the regime's supporters.

Much of the offensive has targeted Baath party members and buildings and positions held by paramilitaries loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

US and British commanders believe killing members of those groups will loosen Saddam's control over the population, which they say is based on instilling fear.
Captain Cartwright said that as the looting was underway, some of the civilians pointed out suspected Baath party members in their midst.
"The villagers pointed out to us a number of men who were considerably better dressed and groomed than everyone else and who appeared to be agitated by what they saw," Captain Cartwright said.
"It was also noticeable how the locals' body language and attitude changed - they became more fearful, more cowed," he said.
Those identified were asked into the building to "talk" to British officers, at which point they were immediately arrested and searched, he said.
They were then led, handcuffed, into the back of a British armoured vehicle in full sight of the locals.

U.S. Marines launched a dawn raid on the town of Shatra, north of Nassiriya, on Monday, aiming to assassinate senior Iraqi officials they believe are directing attacks again invasion forces, Reuters reported.

...Meanwhile, at least one U.S. soldier was killed on Monday in a clash with Iraqi forces armed with rocket propelled grenades about 110 km south of Baghdad. A U.S. officer said that at least one soldier died in the fighting near the town of Imam Aiyub, south of the city of Hilla.

From the Herald Times/AP:

The 101st Airborne Division encircled the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Sunday, preparing for a possible door-to-door battle to root out Saddam Hussein's fighters — but leery of damaging some of the faith's most sacred shrines.

From IRNA:

Iraq's elite Republican Guards who engaged in a fierce fighting with US troops on Sunday night succeed to forcing American forces out of Najaf desert, 120 km south of Baghdad, on Monday. According to IRNA correspondent in Baghdad, the US forces who were cut off from their supply and logistic units after a fierce clash with the Republican Guard withdrew from their positions in Najaf.

From The Agonist:

8:40 EST CNN Reports that Geraldo has been thrown out of Iraq. He was expelled for giving away details of planned operations- he's being escorted out by the 101st and dropped off in Kuwait. He drew a map in the sand showing where the 101 was going during a segment.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

US officers say forces have begun their first serious battle with Iraq's elite Republican Guard around the city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, with 200 Iraqis killed, wounded or captured.

An interesting remark from General Franks

Making only his third appearance in front of journalists since the conflict began, General Franks said on Sunday that the war was "on plan, and where we stand today is not only acceptable in my view, it is fairly remarkable".

But he added: "One never knows how long the war will take. We don't know."

So says the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

It then goes into details about exactly how tough.

For journalists working outside the control of the US and British military or the Iraqi authorities and the conditions they set in exchange for special access, it is a high-risk venture.

"We had a misidentification of the rank of the officer concerned," Group Capt. Al Lockwood said on Monday. "What I can say today is -- and can confirm -- that we have five senior Iraqi officers as prisoners of war."

CNN

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri has threatened to turn the desert into a grave for invading US and British forces if they did not retreat.

Hungry, poorly equipped and watched constantly, the three young friends from Basra made a pact: if they saw a chance to escape from the Iraqi Army, they would do it together.

Eight days ago, while the security men who enforce military discipline in their unit enjoyed a meal, Bassam Salah Madlool, Mushriq Ahmad Hashem and Abbas Fahid Mushin saw their chance.

Continue reading 'Iraqi deserters reveal executions'

They raced past minefields, evading radar and gunfire, and fled for 12 hours across hills, valleys and mountains until they reached Kifrey, in Kurdish-run northern Iraq.

"I feel like I've been born a second time,'' said Madlool, 28, a nine-year army veteran who deserted his post at the 436th battalion of the 15th division of the Farooq Army, just south of Kirkuk. "For the first time in my life I feel free.''

Madlool and his friends said a security cordon of minefields and radar detectors around the barracks restrain potential deserters. But the biggest danger, they say, comes from recently formed execution units, created by members of the ruling Baath Party, military security officers and the Iraqi intelligence service.

Many defections have been reported since the United States and Britain launched a campaign to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from office, but they have not hastened the demise of his regime as allied forces had hoped.

Barham Salih, prime minister of the Kurdish government in northern Iraq that is allied with the Americans, said there has been a slight increase in defections since the U.S. bombing started March 20. He said two defecting low-level commanders were recently taken in by his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which controls the eastern half of the Kurdish autonomous area of northern Iraq. He said a 12-mile retreat by Iraqi forces from the front lines surrounding the oil city of Kirkuk was meant to tighten positions and prevent an increase in desertions.

"The Iraqi military establishment has suffered a serious blow,'' Salih said. "There is no real fighting being conducted ... The Iraqi military is caught in a difficult situation, between allied bombardment on the one hand and Saddam's death squads on the other.''

Madlool, with the clean-cut look of a college student, described the life of a typical Iraqi soldier as one of backbreaking work, "intolerable'' living conditions and constant scrutiny by security forces. "It's months since we've seen our families. The weapons are of low quality. The food is bad. And there's endless work from the early morning to late at night.''

Soldiers are subject to regular religious and ideological indoctrination classes run by officials of Saddam's ruling Baath Party. The Baghdad government attempted to boost morale and prepare troops for the U.S. offensive, the deserters said. Just before the war began, Baghdad raised the salary of soldiers from $3 a month to $12. They also were trained in guerrilla warfare and hand-to-hand combat.

But many ordinary soldiers feel they are little more than cannon fodder under the thumb of the Republican Guard units. "The regular army is just a victim of the regime,'' said Hashem, 20. "The Republican Guards have all the power. They have the best supplies and the best weapons.''

Once the U.S. bombing raids began hitting positions near their barracks south of Kirkuk, the three men said an increasing number of their comrades tried to desert. In the two days before Madlool, Hashem, and 21-year-old Mushin escaped, they said the execution units killed 10 fellow soldiers who tried to escape.

The three deserters saw their chance while the officers enjoyed a midnight snack. In civilian clothes they had worn beneath their uniforms, they sneaked past the minefields. Then motion detectors went off, and they had to run for their lives as officers in the execution unit shot at them.

"We were too far by the time they realized we were gone,'' Madlool said. The three walked and ran for nearly 12 hours until they reached an outpost manned by Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen outside the city of Kifrey, on the long front that separates Kurdish and Baghdad-controlled sections of Iraq. They waved the white flag of surrender. The Peshmergas welcomed them with tea and food. In Sulaymaniyah, the three deserters are being kept at an undisclosed hotel, where they've been watching television news, eating junk food and dreaming of peace.

"When the war is over, maybe I'll pursue my dreams: getting married, buying a car and traveling,'' Madlool said.

According to LGF. I've seen no other evidence as yet.

UPDATE : Apart from Command Post of course...

UPDATE : MSNBC confirms. No word on National Geographic.

UPDATE : Now there is. See comments. Original title to this article was "Arnett Fired?". Now there's no question.

Robert Fisk in The Independent has some evidence pointing to what may well have caused the casualties in one of the Baghdad Markets.

The piece of metal bearing the codings was retrieved only minutes after the missile exploded on Friday evening, by an old man whose home is only 100 yards from the 6ft crater. Even the Iraqi authorities do not know that it exists.
..
It reads: 30003-704ASB 7492. The letter "B" is scratched and could be an "H". This is believed to be the serial number.
..
"We have never seen anything like these wounds before," Dr Ahmed, an anaesthetist at the Al-Noor hospital told me later. "These people have been punctured by dozens of bits of metal." He was right. One old man I visited in a hospital ward had 24 holes in the back of his legs and buttocks, some as big as pound coins. An X-ray photograph handed to me by one of his doctors clearly showed at least 35 slivers of metal still embedded in his body.

That part number is indeed a piece of a HARM (AGM-88 series) High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile, insofar as I can tell.
..
One of the things you didn't try (why should you, you have no idea how the screwy DoD inventory system works!) is substituting a number for that "letter" that appears in the serial number. I tried the obvious choice -- 8 (i.e., 704AS87492) and fed it to the WEBFLIS systems and lo!--got a hit (I also tried avery other digit and got no hits).

So...provided you believe Mr Fisk, whose name is a byword for Idiotarianism, then provided the "Old Man" wasn't telling porkies in the pay of the Ba'athists, and provided the fragment wasn't just coincidentally in the area, then it was one of ours. But if it's such a set-up, it's an extremely professional one.

A few days ago, I would have bet 100:1 it wasn't a Coalition weapon at fault. After this, the odds I'm afraid are 3:2 on, pending further data. The only doubt I have (apart from the setup theory) is that the HARM warhead is really small - almost certainly too small to create the havoc shown in the photos.

According to the FAS 45.2 Ibs.

How to verify or disprove the suspicion? It's not much use finding out if an aircraft fired such a missile in the area on that date, as the missiles have a range in the 10s of Kilometres (though finding that it was fired on another date would disprove the hypothesis and expose a really professional scam). Suggestion: Get an independent party to look at the X-rays and fragments in the victims bodies. From the FAS site again:

The AGM-88A, and AGM-88B warhead section contains 25,000 pre-formed steel fragments....The AGM-88C utilizes an improved warhead section containing 12,845 tungsten fragments...

Peter Arnett apologized for his interview on Iraqi TV. Arnett appeared on the Today Show this morning, and though I didn't see it myself, DC radio WTOP said Arnett called it a "stupid misjudgment." Arnett acknowledged the interview produced "shock" in some quarters. He said he was embarrassed, and sorry, and added that he is not anti-war.

UPDATE: Fox news crew crowing that Arnett is no longer working for NBC. Arnett was in Baghdad for National Geographic Explorer/MSNBC.

NOTE: See Command Post reader charyl's comments--MSNBC and NBC announced they have dropped him. MSNBC will be showing clip of interview on The Today Show at 10:30.

Final Update: Fox News crawl quotes NBC as saying it fired Arnett because it was wrong for him to appear on state-sponsored Iraqi TV.

Power has been re-established in Umm Qasr for the first time since the outbreak of war. Cheering rang through the streets of the town as electricity flowed into a small group of houses.

It is the second boost in recent days for the 35,000-strong population as clean water also began pumping in to the town.

Ananova

The engagement, involving troops from the 16th Air Assault Brigade, began on Sunday afternoon and carried on into the early hours of the morning.

The British force, including tanks and artillery, encountered an Iraqi force of two infantry companies - around 300 to 400 men - also supported by tanks and artillery. In the fighting that followed, 17 Russian-built T55 tanks and five artillery pieces were destroyed. A number of Iraqis were reported to have been taken prisoner.

Ananova

Most of the experts in the intelligence community in Israel, the United States and Britain, as well as academic researchers and experts, believe that if Saddam is pushed so that his back is to the wall and realizes that the battle is lost and he has zero chance of remaining in power, he is liable to order the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Article by Yossi Melman in Ha'aretz

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Monday the U.S.-led war on Iraq would produce "one hundred new bin Ladens," driving more Muslims to anti-Western militancy.

News from around the Web:

From Reuters:
U.S.: Possible Al Qaeda Base Destroyed in Iraq
U.S. Pounds Baghdad, Battles to the South
Rumsfeld's Role as War Strategist Under Scrutiny
Hard to Phone in Baghdad as U.S. Bombs Exchanges
Arnett Iraq Interview a 'Professional Courtesy'

From UPI:
Analysis: The scramble to blame and deny
U.S. and Kurds defeat al-Qaida offshoot
Analysis: U.K. troops avoid U.S. tactics

From IRNA:
USWAR/US-led coalition air strikes on Mosul continue
Thai academics want UN to enforce rule of law

From ITAR-TASS:
Iraq bombing can trigger earthquakes
US Marines mount attack of Shatrah

From CNS News:
Egypt Denounces Iraqi Attack on Shopping Mall
Coalition Warships On Lookout For Suicide Bombers

From FAZ:
Post-war Iraq on Schröder's agenda

A major reason for the lack of a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq could lie hundreds of miles away in the Iranian capital, Tehran, where the leading Iraqi Shiite cleric has lived in exile for more than 20 years.

Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim has sent instructions to his supporters and secret cells in Basra, Najaf, Karbala and other southern Iraqi cities not to start an uprising or support the American-led coalition in any way, according to two of his top advisers. Al-Hakim also issued a "message to the Iraqi people" last week urging them not to side either with the United States or the Iraqi regime.

Mohamad Bazzi in Newsday

US Marines have launched a dawn raid to capture the infamous Iraqi general "Chemical Ali", reports say.

Ali Hassan al-Majeed, dubbed "Chemical Ali" by the Americans for his role in overseeing the gassing of Kurdish villagers in 1988, is believed to be in the town of Shatra, north of Nasiriyah.

Soldiers went into the town on Monday morning to take out leading Iraqi officials, a Reuters correspondent said

From Sky News

British soldiers wounded by "friendly fire" in Iraq say their convoy was hit by a U.S. aircraft and one of them called the pilot a "cowboy" with no regard for human life, the Times has reported.

"You've got an A10 with advanced technology and he can't use a thermal sight to identify whether a tank is a friend or a foe. It's ridiculous," the newspaper quoted Lance Corporal Steven Gerrard as saying from his bed on the hospital ship RFA Argus.

Britain has so far lost 24 troops in the Iraq war. Five have been killed in action, 14 in accidents and five in so-called "friendly fire" incidents, killed by their own side in the conflict.

BBC and Reuters

Fox News interviews Centcom spokesman Captain Frank Thorp: "Coalition forces have found and taken over a grain silo in central Iraq that contained a 4 month supply of food. The troops have turned the food back over to local villagers."

US and Kurdish forces are searching a camp in north-eastern Iraq which the Americans claim was a militant hideout used to manufacture poisons, including ricin.

The camp, which the Americans say belonged to Islamic radicals of the Ansar al-Islam group, lies in a Kurdish area near the border with Iran.

(BBC)

An interesting account of visit to Umm Qasr and Basra, not least because it is by an Arab News correnspondent:

I asked several [people in Umm Qasr] what they thought of the US/UK plan to remove Saddam. They told me: “Now that they have started to remove him, they cannot stop. If they do, then we are all as good as dead. He still has informants in Umm Qasr and he knows who is against him and who isn’t.”

When asked about what they think of this war, most Iraqis said that they were against the loss of innocent life and the destruction of their cities, but they seemed adamant about the removal of Saddam. They were happy about the “liberation” of Umm Qasr but were disappointed in the US/UK for not keeping their promises to provide humanitarian aid.

Arab News

The head of Baghdad's air defences has been sacked by Saddam Hussein over last week's explosions in two market places in the city, according to intelligence reports given to Tony Blair yesterday.

Downing Street claimed that Saddam dismissed his own cousin, Musahim Saab al-Tikriti, because air defence missiles had been failing to hit their targets and falling back on Baghdad. According to the intelligence reports presented to the Prime Minister before yesterday's meeting of the War Cabinet, Saddam has recalled a retired officer, Shahin Yasin Muhammad al-Takriti, to take over Baghdad's air defences.

(telegraph.co.uk)

A steady sale of illegal arms from Yugoslavia to Iraq ought to be something we stopped worrying about with the downfall of dictator Slobodan Milosevic. But there is evidence that it continues unchecked under his successors.

CBSNEWS

Islamic Jihad will step up attacks in Israel as a show of support for Iraq, reports the WSJ.

The transcripts of Donald Rumsfeld's appearances on ABC's This Week, and Fox News Sunday are now available.

Some choice tidbits from :

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: There's also a report this morning in Reuters, I believe, coming from officials they have on the ground, saying that there's going to be a pause, some U.S. troops there said there was going to be a pause in the military campaign against Baghdad. One individual said the pause could go as long as 35-40 days. Is that true?

SEC. RUMSFELD: [Laughs] No. I tell you, no matter where you are, you're always going to hear somebody saying something, and I'm sure they're saying something they believe. But the fact of the matter is I was on the phone this morning with General Abizaid and the people out in the region and we have no plans for pauses or cease-fires or anything else.

Now, is it possible that, for example, the British troops will be engaged in Basra for a period? Sure. Is that a pause? I don't think so.

[...]

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: So that would indicate that you don't hold out a lot of hope for mass surrender anymore.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I never did. Tom Franks fashioned a plan that assumed a long, difficult task, but was prepared to take advantage of quicker victory.

I think it's important to remind ourselves that what the world is seeing is 24 hours a day, seven days a week television news on this subject. It's been going on nine days. It's a little early for post-mortems. It's a little early to write history. It's a little early to be making those kinds of judgments.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, it's already happening. A fair amount of criticism is starting to crop up in the press. A report in this morning's "New Yorker" magazine by Seymour Hersh, highly critical piece. And he says that on six separate occasions you were presented with operational plans from Central Command and you sent them back saying I want to see far fewer forces in these plans. Is that true?

SEC. RUMSFELD: That's false. Tom Franks -- absolutely false -- Tom Franks and the chairman and I, when the president asked us to prepare a plan, looked at the plan that was on the shelf and to a person agreed it was inappropriate. It wasn't me or the chairman or Tom Franks, anyone who looked at it would have known it was not an appropriate plan.

Franks then sat down and began planning. The plan we have is his. I would be delighted to take credit for it. It's a good plan. It's a creative and an innovative plan. And it's going to work. And it is his plan and it has been approved by the chiefs. Every one of the chiefs has said it's executable and they support it. It's been looked at by all the combatant commanders. It's gone through the National Security Council process. And what you're seeing is fiction. You're seeing
second-guessers out there.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But you know, Seymour Hersh isn't alone then in writing this fiction. There is also an article in the Washington Post this morning by Vernon Loeb and he said -- he goes on to say that there were "More than a dozen officers interviewed, including a senior officer in Iraq, said Rumsfeld took significant risks by leaving key units in the United States and Germany at the start of the war. That resulted in an invasion force that is too small, strung-out,
underprotected, under-supplied, and awaiting tens of thousands of reinforcements who will not get there for weeks." Your response?

SEC. RUMSFELD: The people who are commenting on the war plan, I think, are probably people who have never seen it. And therefore, one has to ask that question.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Why do you think that people --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Just a minute, just a minute, just a minute -- I have a feeling that if you ask General Franks, which people did today, about the war plan, he would say that there is nothing he has asked for that he has not gotten.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: So this is just pure fiction, in your view?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, it is. What happened -- I can think of one instance, and I'll give you -- I'll tell you what it was. I was given a deployment order for a National Guard unit, I believe from Puerto Rico. And I was asked to sign it for force protection for our forces in Germany. And I looked at it and I said, "My goodness, why don't we ask if the Germans would be willing to provide force protection for our troops and we can use those folks for something else?" We did. Within a matter of 24 hours, the Germans had agreed to provide force
protection. They're doing it. And that unit did not have to go. Now, is that going to lose the war? No. Was it something that was different than had been sent me by the -- some of the staff people? Yes. It was different.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But you know --

SEC. RUMSFELD: The other thing that occurred was the logistics train was designed to be either everything went or nothing went. And in fact, the president wanted to support the diplomacy in the United Nations. So he wanted things to flow in over a period of time. But everything that they've asked for is in process. It's all arriving. Their numbers of troops are arriving. They're increasing by two or three thousand everyday.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But you know, you've used 550,000 troops for what was presumably an easier job back in 1991, pushing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Can you explain why half that number or a little more than half that number is appropriate now?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, there are about 300,000 troops there now. And if you go back and look at the 500,000 that you referenced from the Gulf War, they were not used, for the most part. The Iraqi regime is probably 35-40 percent as capable as it was back in 1991. And the people talking about this tend to be people who have the 1991 Gulf War in their mind.

But if you think about it, what they did -- Tom Franks' plan was to not have a long air war. And everyone was expecting a long air war. He put the ground forces in Iraq before the air war even began. Now, that's unusual.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz speaks again on ABC television. He says "The war against the Coalition is going well" and called the suicide bomber "a hero".

U.S. forces were repositioning south of Baghdad and reviewing battle plans Monday, waiting for the right moment to launch a major attack against Iraqi forces protecting the capital. While U.S. forces reportedly captured dozens of fighters of President Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard south of the capital, war planners said top commanders could delay the final assault on Baghdad itself to build pressure on the Guard’s elite Medina Division, which they said had already been severely damaged.

MSNBC

When the Americans were planning their campaign in Iraq, they reckoned the forces that would try to prevent the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime would be the Republican Guard divisions, special forces and the secret police. They were contemptuous of the regular Iraqi army, and practically didn't take into account the popular militias. Now, it seems, they never included terrorist organizations like the Ansar el Islam in their equation of opposing forces, nor the latest of the terror groups that have surprised the Americans with suicide bombings.

Continue reading 'Analysis: Ze'ev Schiff on how the U.S. underestimated Iraqi resistance'

Update: another view via Instapundit

The transmission of the Iraqi television was halted Monday morning following the bombardment of the Iraqi ministry of information. Meanwhile, the American Central Command announced today that it carried out last night a missile attack against the building of the Iraqi information ministry - reports the Saudi Press Agency. Update: MSNBC/Reuters now has this news too. According to the Wave Guide the country's international satellite operation is still broadcasting.

Palestinians in the refugee camp of Jenin have named their main square after the Iraqi army officer who carried out the first suicide attack against the US Army in Iraq.

"We want to honor the brave Iraqi officer who carried out the first suicide attack against the American and British occupiers. We hope there will be more suicide operations in the coming days" a senior Palestinian official in Jenin told The Jerusalem Post.

JPost

American troops fighting in central Iraq have captured several enemy fighters who said they were members of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.

The dawn assault on the key river crossing is the closest known point in the US-led advance on Baghdad, where a battle with the Republican Guard, the best-trained Iraqi troops, looms.

Ananova

In the first indication by the State Department that the war on terror may include a day of reckoning with Iran and Syria, Secretary of State Colin Powell demanded that the two rogue states halt their weapons programs and end support for terrorism.

The Jerusalem Post

"Iran must stop its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and the ability to deliver them," Powell said in a keynote address Sunday night at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's 44th annual policy conference.

"Syria also now faces a critical choice," Powell told more than 4,000 members of the pro-Israel community who gathered here for the three-day conference.

"Syria can continue direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein or it can or it can embark on a different and more hopeful course. Either way, Syria bears the responsibility of its choices and for the consequences."

Powell's remarks came days after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld accused Syria of shipping military supplies, including night-vision goggles, to Iraq as coalition troops fight Iraqi forces.

"These deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces," Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.

"We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments," he said.

Powell received warm applause throughout his address, particularly when he defended the current planning and pace of the war in Iraq, which has come under fire from the press and some politicians in the US for having been overly optimistic in the pre-war stage.

"Let me just say this to you. We are only 10 or 11 days into this war. Baghdad is slowly being encircled. Pockets of resistance are being isolated. The oil fields are secure. Humanitarian aid is beginning to flow," said Powell.

"I have total confidence in the plan and total confidence in General [Tommy] Franks and the other leaders who are carrying out that plan," he said.

"Let there be no doubt about the outcome," he added. "We will drive Saddam Hussein and his regime out of power."

US Secretary of State Collin Powell, speaking at an AIPAC policy conference tonight, stated that the US led coalition will rid Israel and all civilized nations of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.

The Jerusalem Post

Powell made an appeal to all democratic nations to step up and confront Iran's terror threat.

"Syria also faces a critical choice - Syria must take responsibility for it's choices and it's consequences," Powell stated.

Powell's warning to Iran and Syria was carried live by several international cable broadcasting networks.

In reference to the Palestinians and yesterdays Palestinian terror suicide bombing attack in Netanya, Powell stated: "terror can not be used as a political tool - terror must end."

Powell illustrated US - Israeli bonds as being the "strongest possible relationship between two nations" and applauded Israel's "common values and democratic traditions" which it shares with the US.

MSNBC reporting that British troops have killed 30 Iraqi paramilitary troops in attacks in Basra as part of "Operation James" (as in Bond, James Bond). More on this operation from the Telegraph.

Fox News Rick Leventhal (with 1st Marine - 3rd LAR) reports in: "Any "operational pause" has been lifted. We've been moving since this morning...met resistance... passed numerous iraqi anti-aircraft guns that have been destroyed...Two incidents with civilian vehicle...A van ...Vehicle approahced it. it didn't stop... so they fired on them.... hit one of them in the stomach...Marines moved them to a landng zone so that they could be medivac'd...They are trying to clear out the area...eliminate threats in the area....destroy ammunition left behind...

Asked about the pace:

Leventhal: "As of today the pace has picked up considerably....Units within the battalion have been moving on a daily basis."

Asked how stiff has the resistance been:

Leventhal: "It hasn't been too stiff. Whatever forces were there were eliminated quite quickly...if there were people hiding there they were taken out in a single shot....when the vehicles we were with came under fire, our vehicles returned fire...and then there was no fire."

Asked about the mood of the troops

Mood is upbeat... they don't want to sit...they want to egt a sense that they are on the way to some conclusion...they are moving and making progress."

CNN is reporting that:

U.S. Central Command said about 100 "terror squad members" were killed early Monday in fighting around Najaf and Samawah in southern Iraq.

Central Command said soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division also took another 50 Iraqi troops prisoner. Further details were not immediately available.

The Associated Press reports that US forces have advanced to Hindiyah, a town south of Baghdad:

Fighting street by street, U.S. Army troops punched their way into this town Monday in the closest known battle in the U.S.-led advance on Baghdad. The Americans captured several dozen Iraqis who identified themselves as members of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Republican Guard.

Update: Fox reports that one soldier has been killed in fighting at Hindiyah. (Later) The reports regarding Hillah and Hindiyah are getting conflated (by me or by the anchors). The towns are near each other, southeast of Karbala (see map)

The story continues:

At least 15 Iraqi troops were killed in the fighting in Hindiyah, 50 miles south of Baghdad between the sacred city of Karbala and the ruins of ancient Babylon. The prisoners told the Americans they belonged to the guard's Nebuchadnezzar Brigade, based in Saddam's home area of Tikrit, and they had the guard's triangular insignia.

The 4th Battalion of the 64th armored regiment rolled in to the town of 80,000 at dawn ? met quickly by small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades from Iraqis hiding behind hedges and brick walls.

On the southeast side of a 200-yard concrete and steel bridge across the dark-green Euphrates, the soldiers took up positions in abandoned bunkers and sandbags and traded fire with Iraqis on the other side. A dark blue car attempted to race across the bridge toward U.S. forces but it was hit with heavy machine gun fire, which stopped it in the middle.

Iraqi forces dressed in civilian clothes with blue or red kaffiyahs wrapped around their heads and faces scrambled between buildings, trying to sneak up on U.S. troops on the city side of the bridge. Americans in tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles fired back with heavy machine guns and 25mm cannon.

Here is a Ha'aretz story, citing Reuters, with details on the report in the previous post:

U.S. Marines launched a dawn raid on the town of Shatra, north of Nassiriya, on Monday, aiming to kill senior Iraqi officials they believe are directing guerrilla attacks, Reuters reported. Among those targeted was Ali Hassan al-Majeed, or "Chemical Ali," the cousin whom President Saddam Hussein has put in charge of the southern front. The Marines were storming the town, about 35 km (20 miles) north of the city of Nassiriya, with warplanes dropping precision-guided bombs, helicopter gunships and tanks.

MSNBC reporting U.S. Marines have launched a dawn raid in the town of Shatrah with the objective of killing certain identified leadership targets, possibly including Chemical Ali. Also, another American unit (an Army unit, perhaps the 3rd ID -- I didn't quite catch it) has captured "dozens" of POWs identifying themselves as members of the Republican Guard about 50 miles south of Baghdad in the town of Hindiyah. Finally, in Basra, the British "Desert Rats" are engaged in heavy fighting. UPDATE TO ORIGINAL POST: The unidentified unit referred to above was, indeed, part of the 3rd ID, and the prisoners captured were from the Nebuchadnezzer Brigade of the Republican Guard. (As reported by AP, via Yahoo)

A number of Scuds that could be within striking distance of Israel are still believed to be in western Iraq, Time magazine says in an exclusive report today.

"Washington has pointed to the capture of two airfields in western Iraq as a blow to Saddam's ability to menace Israel with Scud missiles, as he did in the 1991 war," the magazine writes. "But the U.S. has what it considers credible intelligence that some Scuds have eluded detection in western Iraq, within striking distance of Israel."

A senior U.S. intelligence official told Time: "We are not out of the woods yet." He said Saddam may have "a Scud or two that he's saving for the right moment," noting that coalition forces are hunting the western desert for missile launchers.

From Ha'aretz

From this:

IRNA -- US troops discovered a depot of chemical weapons in Iraqi southern city of Nassiriya, said the Kuwait Television on Monday... The television quoted US forces in Kuwait as claiming that the US troops discovered nerve gas as well as necessary equipment for fighting against chemical attacks in this depot... The United States has earlier claimed it discovered a depot of chemical weapons in the outskirts of Najaf.

Note that I put this in the 'rumors' category, and they might have confused 'chemical weapons' with 'chemical weapon detection kits' or similar.

Experts: Impact after war a concern
By Elaine S. Povich

Washington - Suicide attacks like the one in which four U.S. soldiers died yesterday present a new worry for the troops, but will have more of an effect on the war's aftermath and the political situation in Iraq than on the immediate course of the fighting, experts said.

Suicide attacks are not new. From the Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II who crashed their planes into U.S. ships to the truck bomb attack on a Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, U.S. fighting forces have confronted such tactics for decades.

Full Story Globalsecurity.org

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer
Allied soldiers inched toward Baghdad on Sunday and killed or captured about 150 paramilitary fighters in a southern stronghold, trying at every turn to root out loyalists of Saddam Hussein and stay safe from those who may be combatants in disguise.

The military campaign has increasingly become a confidence-building one, too, and not only in Iraq. U.S. war leaders, deployed on the Sunday airwaves, defended their strategy as a sound one and cast the painstaking pace of recent days as a virtue.

Full Story

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi yesterday said that his country would support only a regime in Iraq that is elected by the Iraqi people and come to office under the UN supervision.

"Iran would welcome a government in Iraq which would observe good neighbourly relations as well as laws and agreements existing between the two countries," he added.

"Such a government would be different from the one desired and imposed by the U.S.," Kharrazi pointed out. The next government in Iraq will be a pro-U.S. government and it will recognise Israel. Hence, it can still be a hazard for Iran," an Iraqi veteran staying in Iran told Gulf News.

(Gulf News)

As the U.S. invasion of Iraq nears the two-week mark, newspaper editors and their reporters at the front -- no less than military planners and the public -- are wondering how long it will last, and at what price. Pondering war coverage that could go on for months, journalists are trying to "recalibrate" (to use a suddenly popular word) and plan far ahead. In some cases, editors are preparing fresh correspondents to relieve those in the field if the fighting continues much longer.

(Editor & Publisher)

Who's next after Saddam?
A) Iran
B) Syria
C) N. Korea
D) ________(write-in)

Islamic Jihad has told the BBC that the first wave of suicide bombers have arrived in Iraq to attack allied soldiers.

Moroccan protesters, estimated to number 150,000 have been in the streets supporting suicide bombings in both Israel and Iraq.

The Iraqi government has written a letter of complaint to the United Nations denouncing what it says was a missile strike last week in a shopping area in Baghdad.

Iraqi officials said fifteen civilians died in the explosion that rocked the Shaab District market March 26. U.S. officials said coalition forces were not responsible, but Iraq insists they were.

(CNN)

THOUSANDS of Marines pushed north toward Baghdad in "seek and destroy" missions yesterday, trying to open the route to the Iraqi capital and stop days of attacks along a stretch that has become known as "Ambush Alley."

Charging into previously unsecured areas, the Marines tried to provoke attacks in order to find Iraqi fighters and defeat them. A chaplain travelling with them handed out humanitarian packages to distrustful Iraqi civilians encountered along the way.

(The Irish Examiner)

Zionists are at fault.

'Israel Controls the American Administration, Therefore Re-Designing the Region Will Serve Its Interests' "Israel Will Not Be a Legitimate State Even After the Peace

The coalition's military campaign against the regime of Saddam Hussein is on track, and ground forces are already engaging Iraqi Republican Guard troops around Baghdad with armed reconnaissance, artillery, and Apache helicopters, according to General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

(U.S. Department of State)

From Knight Ridder via Stars & Stripes:

Over the weekend, the number of POWs at [a nearby] camp increased from 100 to about 1,000 as desertions by scared and hungry Iraqis contributed to the attrition of Saddam Hussein's forces.

But the increased number of desertions also has made soldiers more alert, amid reports of ambushes by Iraqi fighters pretending to surrender.

"We are suddenly seeing a drastic escalation in Iraqi soldiers and conscripted men turning themselves in," said Capt. John Wilson of U.S.

The NYT (registration required - sorry) indicates that elements of the 3d ID have already begun probing attacks against the RG positions on the outskirts of Baghdad.

The comment that 'Momentum has stalled' is included...

The Singapore Straits Times, with a little help from Reuters, says there is a pause in operations that could last 35-40 days and the war could stretch on:

The war on Iraq looks set to stretch into the summer as the United States switches tactics, focusing on building up its forces and launching pulverising air raids before going in for the kill with a massive ground assault.

While the word from the Pentagon is that there will be no operational pause, Reuters reported that US troops with one frontline unit had been told by their officers to expect a pause that could last 35 to 40 days because of overstretched supply lines and the need to overcome stiff Iraqi resistance in the south.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

British soldiers injured when an American "tankbuster" aircraft attacked their convoy, killing one of their comrades, hit out angrily at the "cowboy" pilot today.

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

Trooper Joe Woodgate, 19, the driver of the Scimitar in which gunner LCoH Hull was killed, walked away with holes in his bullet-proof vest and torn clothes. He told The Guardian: "I don't suppose they have learned much from the first war. I can tell what an American tank looks like from every direction. How come somebody who is a top-notch Thunderbolt pilot can't tell what a British tank looks like?"

Saddam Hussein set up a system giving his most trusted lieutenants and local tribal leaders the power to mount a guerrilla campaign or other military measures without waiting for his orders.

Saddam reorganized his chain of command before the war so that he need not give every order and thus make himself vulnerable to U.S. electronic detection. U.S. officials, however, see the absence of Saddam's strong hand on the battlefield as a sign that he may be dead or wounded.

Although Saddam may not be issuing all the orders, his prediction of a tough ground fight is on the mark, and his defensive measures appear to be paying off.

(Fox News)

Iraq Saturday rejected a new Security Council resolution renewing the seven-year-old oil-for-food programme under sole charge of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

"Only Iraq can administer this programme," Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf told a press conference in response to the resolution adopted by the council unanimously Friday.

(News24.com)

Jeff Schubert issues a warning to Tony Blair:

If the Iraqi army fights hard, the collateral damage in terms of civilian lives, infrastructure and perceptions in the Muslim world will be immense. Blair may then find that his morality is seen as a "crime" as well as a "mistake".

So will the Iraqi army fight? I don't know, but consider the following.

The Soviet army commanders passed up a golden opportunity to rid themselves of Stalin when Hitler invaded Russia in 1941. Stalin had lost the plot when he realised what Hitler had done and had virtually hid in his dacha for days.

Schubert wrote this piece on February 18th. Read the rest.

Teams of international firefighters have succeeded in putting out fires at six of the nine wellheads burning at an oilfield in southern Iraq.

Iraqi troops lit the wells when the war started last week, hoping to slow the advance of coalition troops.

(CBC)

British forces pushed into Basra on Sunday with the help of that southern city’s besieged citizens.

The city has become a redoubt for an outnumbered but persistent core of Saddam loyalists who have held off the allies for about a week, officials said.

"They are in Basra, they are getting increasing assistance from the local people as to where the death squads are located, where the thugs are," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington. "And they’re systematically working them over."

CBS' 60 Minutes reports that Yugoslavia continued illegal arms sales to Iraq even after the fall of the Milosevic regime. Among other equipment and expertise, they may have sold Iraq the television guidance system for anti-aircraft missiles that is responsible for bringing down the only stealth fighter ever lost to enemy fire.

UPDATE: A commenter reminded me that it was a F-117A, which is designated as a stealth fighter (capabilities aside), that was shot down, not a stealth bomber. I've made the correction.

According to Fox News/SkyNews, the British Defense Ministry says that the individual captured earlier in Basra is, in fact, not a general, but a person of indeterminate rank.

As George Carlin would say, "He's actually a specific."

As new airstrikes pound Iraq's Information of Ministry, the familiar sounds of air raid sirens have given way to something else:

Recorded calls of "God is great" from mosque minarets alerted the people of Baghdad to another night of bombings late Sunday, followed by a massive explosion and then the streaks of anti-aircraft gunners' tracers across the sky.

In the past few nights, the mosque loudspeakers have been used instead of air-raid sirens -- with the all-clear signaled by another minaret announcement: "God is great, they are gone."

Secretary of State Colin Powell will address the AIPAC annual policy conference at 21:10 Eastern Time tonight.

Just on FOX News, Natan Sharansky of the Israeli government (Deputy Prime Minister?) said that the Americans are getting an idea of the true conflict in the Middle East: It is not tribal warfare of Jews vs. Arab, but the forces of democracy and freedom threatened by terrorists.

Fox News' Simon Marks, speaking from Amman, Jordan, says that during the first seven days foreign reporters were in Baghdad, the Ministry of Information had a "very light touch. We could go anywhere we wanted, interview anyone we wanted to talk to--it was almost a normal assignment. For the final 72 hours, you could sense the climate changing. Ministry officials were getting nervous; restrictions were placed on our ability to communicate with the outside world."

Marks made the comments in a discussion about Peter Arnett's appearance on Iraqi TV. Fox's John Gibson going very hard on Arnett. Marks said he was in a "difficult position" since he's a friend of Arnett, and that it's too soon to judge what's going on. Gibson notes that Fox has been kicked out of Baghdad, as have most other news organizations, and that other reporters have apparently been jailed.

Fox News reports that Iraqi television's signal is "weakening" and "intermittent." May be related to attacks near Ministry of Information.

There is a series of "Operational Information" reports by a certain Ramzaj, posted on iraqwar.ru (Russian language site). This correspondent (blogger?) was the subject of an article on gazeta.ru (Russian language site) that makes several claims, among which are: (1) Ramzaj is a Russian military intelligence officer, and (2) his so-called "Operational Information" reports are eerily accurate and that the information therein precedes the publication of substantially the same information in official reports by from 24 to 48 hours.

The translation of today's report is fairly large (1700+ words). The complete text of the translation is here, translated by me. An excerpt is published in the extended entry part of this post.

(GRATUITOUS EDITORIAL COMMENT: Get your hip boots on before reading!)

The situation on the U.S.-Iraq front for March 29-30 did not undergo any significant changes. Positional engagements, firefights, and active reconnaissance activities continue all along the front on both sides.

The concentration of U.S. forces continues near Karbala. As was noted in a previous report, the U.S. force concentrated here totals up to 30,000 soldiers and officers, up to 200 tanks, and up to 230 helicopters. The latest photographs of this area permit the conclusion that the troops are engaged in maintenance activities and in the repair and deployment of a rear-echelon infrastructure.

Radio intercepts indicate that General Tommy Franks, commander of coalition forces, visited the troops yesterday evening. He personally reviewed troop positions and met with unit commanders.

We do not yet have detailed information, but we can assume that the commander heard reports of his subordinates and assigned objectives for the next two to three days.

A meeting was held at the main headquarters, at which an analysis of the maintenance status of the force was presented. In a personal telephone conversation with a colleague in the U.S., one of the meeting participants described that status as "deplorable," and in his words, "...one third of our equipment can be fearlessly taken to the dump. We are holding on thanks only to round-the-clock repairs. Our heroes aren't the marines at the front but the "worms" in the repair companies. Without them we'd be fighting from the backs of camels long ago."

On the basis of radio intercepts, reports from both sides, and intelligence from the start of the war, the coalition has lost between 15 and 20 tanks in combat, around 40 troop carriers and fighting vehicles, more than 50 trucks and up to 10 helicopters. In addition, we can mention, as a minimum, another 40 unserviceable tanks, about the same number of troop carriers and fighting vehicles, and approximately 100 units of various vehicles and approximately 40 helicopters. These data were obtained by analyzing unclassified technical reports that are sent from the combat zone to the Pentagon.

In the vicinity of An-Najaf, up to two battalions of U.S. Marines attempted a night action to drive Iraqi forces from occupied positions. Despite the nearly four hours of artillery preparation and two aircraft and missile strikes, the units that advanced on the Iraqi positions were met with substantial grenade and machine-gun fire and were forced to withdraw to their original positions.
In the course of the night attack, one tank was blown up by a mine and two troop carriers were knocked out of action. According to radio intercepts, two Marines were killed and 5 others wounded.

An attempt by the Americans to improve their positions on the left bank of the Euphrates at the city of Al Nasiriya were also unsuccessful. Despite taking measures to assure secrecy and surprise, the American units were met with fire and withdrew to their original positions. According to the reports of commanders, three Marines are missing in action and four others were wounded.

These unsuccessful night attacks again confirmed the assumptions of the coalition command that the Iraqi forces are much better equipped than had been estimated before the war. In particular, a February 2003 Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence summary noted that the Iraqi army had almost no night vision devices besides those mounted on heavy armor, and that the serviceability of those units was doubtful. In reality, coalition forces have found that the Iraqis have an adequate quantity of night vision devices and night sights, even at the company level, and are trained in how to use them. Of particular concern is the fact that the majority of captured devices of this kind are of the latest manufacture and of U.S. and Japanese origin. An analysis of the origin of these devices forced the U.S. to start talking of a "Syrian trail." In this regard, American military experts have analyzed military imports from Syria for the past two years and drawn very depressing conclusions to the effect that, in the course of upcoming battles, coalition forces may come up against the most modern Russian-made antitank systems, as well as the most up-to-date radar and communications reconnaissance systems, as well as command and communications systems that are resistant to electronic warfare.

[...]

Cheers...

A group of Saudi intellectuals opposed to war in Iraq has declined an offer to meet the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The group had sent a petition to President Bush before the start of hostilities in Iraq urging him to pursue solutions to the crisis other than war. The petition also called for reform of Arab regimes.

Here is an article on Peter Arnett's interview. An excerpt:

During his prerecorded Baghdad studio interview, which was translated by a green military uniform-wearing Iraqi anchor, Arnett said the Bush administration had ignored his and other reports about "the determination of the Iraqi armed forces and the government willingness to fight for their country."

It was not immediately clear when the interview was conducted.

Arnett was the on-air reporter of the 1998 CNN report that accused American forces of using sarin gas on a Laotian village in 1970 to kill U.S. defectors. Two CNN employees were sacked and Arnett was reprimanded over the report, which the station later retracted. Arnett ultimately left the network.

Here's the original CP post on Arnett.

Iain Murray has a fine analysis on the highly useful expertise brought to the allied coalition by the British. He suggests why, despite their smaller footprint and firepower tonnage, their presence has already saved lives, and is likely to save many more in the coming weeks.

(Via Moira.)

Pictures coming from SkyNews show a building on fire near the Information Ministry .
I'm not sure that's the same building that says "28 April Shopping Center". It's not easy to see.

An Arab News report from Umm Qasr. The reporter encounters British on hunt for snipers, finds Brit camp safer than the city, and is refused entry to Basra. He also interviews some Umm Qasr residents.

I asked several what they thought of the US/UK plan to remove Saddam. They told me: “Now that they have started to remove him, they cannot stop. If they do, then we are all as good as dead. He still has informants in Umm Qasr and he knows who is against him and who isn’t.”

When asked about what they think of this war, most Iraqis said that they were against the loss of innocent life and the destruction of their cities, but they seemed adamant about the removal of Saddam. They were happy about the “liberation” of Umm Qasr but were disappointed in the US/UK for not keeping their promises to provide humanitarian aid.

Salim, 31, told Arab News: “We have not had enough to eat or drink for three days. At the American and British camps there is electricity, just half a kilometer away. Why don’t we have any? The meat we had stored in our homes is now spoiled because there is no refrigeration.”

FoxNews (no link yet) just reported that Peter Arnett has given an interview to Iraqi state television, in which he utters not only the quote that titles this post, but went on to talk about how the increased resistance of the Iraqi fighters (no word if Arnett believes its a voluntary resistance) is encouraging the anti-war movement back home.

In live shots, a building variously described by different networks as the Iraqi Ministry of Information or a building next to the ministry is currently being shown ablaze. It's a smaller building off to the side, so perhaps they're debating whether it's properly part of the Ministry of Information site.

Suicide Bomber ‘Opens Door to Jihad’:

Sergeant Ali Jaffar Moussa Hamadi Al-Nomani was the first Iraqi combatant ever known to stage a suicide attack. Not even during the uprising against British rule did an Iraqi kill himself in order to destroy his enemies. Al-Nomani was also a Shiite Muslim — a member of the very group whom the Americans faithfully believed to be their secret ally in their invasion of Iraq.

The details of the 50-year-old army sergeant’s life are few but nonetheless intriguing. He was a soldier in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and volunteered to fight in the 1991 Gulf War, dubbed the “Mother of All Battles” by the Iraqi leader who believes he was the victor.

Then, overage though he was willing to partake in further fighting, Al-Nomani volunteered yet again to defend his country from the Anglo-American invasion. And so it was, without telling his commanding officer and in his own car, he drove into the US Marine checkpoint just outside Najaf.

For a more detailed commentary see the Op-Ed page or The Mind Of Man.

US Special Forces searched a former Ansar al-Islam base that had been devastated by cruise missile attacks and secured by coalition forces. Intelligence had indicated the site may have been used to produce ricin but officials have thus far found no evidence of chemical weapons.

Fox News just reported Peter Arnett has appeared on Iraqi state television. Fox News' Rita Cosby said Arnett said U.S. journalists had been treated fairly in Iraq, and that he "questioned U.S. war plans." They showed a tape of Arnett on the air with at least one other figure, with the Iraqi TV logo in the corner of the screen.

Arnett, in the interview, credits reports about civilian casualties as helping aid the antiwar effort.

Command Post note: Arnett is the veteran war correspondent, now a U.S. citizen, probably remembered best for his appearance on CNN during Gulf War 1. He is now reporting for National Geographic/MSNBC.

Fox News' John Gibson: Arnett is saying some very controversial things. Among them, he almos takes credit for personally galvanzing oppostion to the war in the U.S. by showing reports from inside baghdad showing Iraqi civilians being hurt. Gibson adds he didn't say antying about reporters being kicked out of country, or about reporters who hae gone missing, and whom Newsday beliees are being held by the Iraq government.

Fox broadcasts the following excerpt of Arnett on Iraq TV: "Clearly the American
war planners misguided the determination of Iraqi forces. Now Ameria is preparing the battlefield, delaying the war (garbled) for maybe a week, and rewriting the war plan. ...The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance, and now they are trying to write another plan. The first war plan has faied because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another.

"Clearly in the U.S. there is a growing challenge to the conduct of the war, and opposition to the war...our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of Iraqi forces, are going back to the U.S. and are helping those who oppose the war."

John Gibson says NBC issued a statement: "Arnett did an impromptu inteview, as a professional courtesy similar to others he has done....his remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anythying more."

Gibson says that Arnett said Iraq authorities had been "unfailingly courteous" and Gibson adds Arnett did not say anything about U.S. reporters who have gone missing, feared abducted by Iraqis.

Discussion in the last segment included speculation about whether Arnett was coerced to do the interview. Gibson also noted that Arnett has expressed his aim of interviewing Saddam.

Iraq pledged yesterday that thousands of Arab volunteers are ready to die in martyr attacks on invading US and British troops as the aerial blitz against Baghdad continued.

(Source: Times of Oman)

U.S.: Iraq not letting Red Cross visit POWs:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iraq still has not let the International Committee of the Red Cross visit U.S. prisoners of war, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday.

"We would hope that the Iraqi regime would do the honorable and the right thing and allow the International Committee of the Red Cross in to visit these prisoners of war," Myers said on CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."

"That's their obligation. They said they were going to do it, and we just hope they follow through."

The United States has agreed to let the Red Cross visit more than 4,000 Iraqi POWs, Myers said. He said the Red Cross wanted to wait until conditions are more secure. He said he did not know whether the visits had taken place yet.

"I think they have probably been inside," he said.

Myers said it is unclear how many Americans are POWs in Iraq. At least five soldiers were captured after an ambush near Nasiriya. More troops are reported as missing in action, he said.

For more detailed commentary see the Op-Ed page or The Mind Of Man.

AMMAN, Jordan - Bruised and bleeding, in need of medical care, the Americans stranded in Iraq's western desert approached the mud-brick town and found the hospital destroyed by bombs.

"Why? Why?" a doctor demanded of them. "Why did you Americans bomb our children's hospital?" Scores of Iraqi townspeople crowded around.

The American peace activists' account was the first confirmation of a report last week that a hospital in Rutbah was bombed Wednesday, with dead and injured. The travelers said they saw no significant Iraqi military presence near the hospital or elsewhere in Rutbah. The doctor did not discuss casualties, the Americans said.

U.S. Central Command said Sunday it had no knowledge of a hospital bombing in Rutbah. The U.S. military has said it is doing its best to avoid civilian casualties in its campaign to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

(Source: Associated Press)

Haaretz reports:

The Israel Defense Forces have decided to release a considerable number of reservists who were called up at the start of the war with Iraq, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet yesterday.

The defense establishment does not want to keep large numbers of reservists on hand because it has repercussions on the economy, he said. According to government sources, about half of the soldiers called up to the Home Front with emergency orders will be released. If there is an emergency, they can be called up speedily, Mofaz said.

I don't write 'em folks, I just post 'em. From the Palestine Chronical: Although the overwhelming majority countries agree that the U.N. must be at the heart of the reconstruction and administration of post-war Iraq, the U.S. once again challenged the will of the international community and appointed a retired U.S. arms dealer - whose company helps the U.S. bomb Baghdad - to oversee “humanitarian relief and rebuilding of Iraq”.

Could this be true? From News.com.au: IRAQI commanders reportedly circulated copies of the movie Black Hawk Down before the war in Iraq as a manual to defeat the Americans. A Time Magazine report says US military intelligence officials believe the movie has been used as a battle guide.

Haaretz reports:

Analysis / How the U.S. underestimated the Iraq resistance By Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz Correspondent

When the Americans were planning their campaign in Iraq, they reckoned the forces that would try to prevent the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime would be the Republican Guard divisions, special forces and the secret police.

They were contemptuous of the regular Iraqi army, and practically didn't take into account the popular militias.

[...]

The expectation that the regular army would quickly collapse or give up was based on assessments by Iraqi opposition figures who escaped to the west after the first Gulf War. The Americans were surprised to find the regular army ready to fight, though their morale and fighting spirit is not high and their equipment is inferior to the Republican Guards.

And the National Post of Canda reports:

Marines make short work of Iraqi regulars Soldiers feel lucky they've not encountered more competent attackers By Matthew Fisher National Post

One by one the Iraqi guns were snuffed out and the Marines withdrew, leaving the tanks and Cobra attack helicopters to finish the operation.

The firefight gave the Pentagon and the Marines a foretaste of the far heavier fighting that is expected when U.S. forces begin to confront elite Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard units near Baghdad.

Those who thought before the war began 12 days ago that the Iraqis would not fight and would surrender en masse have been proven wrong. But Captain Cesar Rodriguez was not impressed by the Iraqi forces his men met in battle yesterday.

"We learned through our interpreter that these were regular army units and civilians who had been made to fight," Capt. Rodriguez said.

"There was no coordinated defence. Their mortar fire was unadjusted throughout the fight and they were using a built-up area for cover."

According to Voice of America, coalition commander Tommy Franks says we have no plans for a pause in operations, are now within 100 miles of Baghdad, and believes that progress has been "remarkable." VOA has further details about the war's current status from the U.S. government perspective.

From this:

A stash of Iraqi training equipment for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare was discovered by British troops today, including a Geiger counter, nerve gas simulators, gas masks and protective suits... "To my eye it looks like training equipment to teach people how to identify if there is something like Sarin in the air and what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.."

In other words, apparently Sarin or other WMDs weren't found, just the means to detect such WMDs.

Saddam reorganized his chain of command before the war so that he need not give every order and thus make himself vulnerable to U.S. electronic detection. U.S. officials, however, see the absence of Saddam's strong hand on the battlefield as a sign that he may be dead or wounded.

In Baghdad, the government has gone to great lengths to emphasize Saddam is in charge. On Saturday night, Iraqi television showed him meeting with key aides. Although there was no audio of Saddam, the announcer said the meeting was to praise a suicide attack that killed four U.S. soldiers near Najaf.

Fox News

Students hold first anti-war protest in China:

Chinese students staged a rare state-sanctioned demonstration as part of worldwide protests against the war in Iraq.

Students at the elite Peking University took part in a quiet anti-war demonstration, in an unusual case of campus political activism permitted by Chinese authorities.

About two dozen students set up signboards displaying photographs of wounded Iraqi civilians and passed out leaflets criticising the war. A box was set out for donations to help Iraqi refugees, and five students briefly held up letters spelling "No War" in English.

However, police dispersed anti-war protesters who sought to gather in other parts of Beijing, continuing the practice of forbidding most public demonstrations.

For more detailed commentary see the Op-Ed page or The Mind Of Man.

Marines Press 'Seek and Destroy' Missions:

SOUTH-CENTRAL IRAQ - Thousands of U.S. Marines pushed north toward Baghdad in "seek and destroy" missions Sunday, trying to open the route to the Iraqi capital and stop days of attacks along a stretch that has become known as "Ambush Alley."

Charging into previously unsecured areas, the Marines tried to provoke attacks in order to find Iraqi fighters and defeat them. A chaplain traveling with them handed out humanitarian packages to distrustful Iraqi civilians encountered along the way.

In Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, the 101st Airborne division encircled the city Sunday, severing inroads and preparing to go door to door to root out paramilitary supporters who have waged stiff resistance for days.

"This is our type of fight," said Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill. "This is probably the most dangerous part of combat, and that's urban. Sometimes you don't find out who the enemy is until they're shooting at you."

For more detailed commentary see the Op-Ed page or The Mind Of Man.

Judicial Watch is suing Chirac for his dealings with Iraq. The story of the suit can be found here. The actual complaint can be found on the Judicial Watch site.

Via: Glenn

From UPI
U.S. and Kurds defeat al-Qaida offshoot
Iran 'opposes' a U.S.-backed Iraqi regime

From the Arab Media
Headquarters of Iraqi oil company bombed
US releases $18 million for infrastructure development in Iraq
Uncle Saddam released on DVD all over the US

Al-Jazeera reporter says that he was not captured, and that he met with him. (Walla, quoting Haaretz).

Near Basra (Walla). No details.
Update: Haaretz quotes Reuters.

IBA radio says, quoting one of the US unit commanders, that the US forces took this measure after the suicide attck which killed 4 US soldiers. He said that the US commanders are aware that this will make it very difficult for the Iraqi civilians, who are trying to escape the war zones.

Quoted from the Agonist:

More details have emerged about the March 30 attack at Camp Udairi, where an estimated 15 people were hurt after someone drove a truck into a group of U.S. soldiers. Officials now say the truck driver was an Egyptian national. Only one of those hurt suffered injuries serious enough to require being transported to Germany; the other 14 suffered only minor scrapes. Shooting was heard at the scene and an ambulance was called into the base, Al Jazeera reported. The driver of the truck sustained two gunshots and is in critical condition.

A German engineer who helped build it, says that it can only be penetrated by a direct hit with a small atomic bomb. (Guardian)