Are we officially at war with Syria, then?

"British snipers have begun operating inside Basra in a series of "harass and destroy" missions against Iraqi paramilitaries defending the city."

From the Daily Telegraph. Check out the related story "British recruit Ba'ath party spies to work in Basra" on the site too.

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/03/wmart03.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/04/03/ixnewstop.html

British snipers kill four Iraqis

"This is just a good source"

sean..link no worky...

That good resource seems to be suffering from the /. effect.

Sean? Did you ever get to check out that story about the Iraqi terror cell trying to get into Texas to blow up W's ranch?

I don't have the link - but you can log onto New York Daily News' website; type in "Mexico" and it will be there.

Fred Kaplan's take on the Republican Guards.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2081055/

Saddam's hugely overrated Republican Guard

This seems kind of suspicious to me, but UPI reporting that al-Qaida has captured five coalition troops.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030402-084451-5231r

LONDON, April 2 (UPI) -- A Muslim fundamentalist source claimed Wednesday that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network captured five coalition troops in Iraq.

The source who requested anonymity told United Press International by telephone that the kidnapping of four U.S. troops and a British soldier, took place last Saturday in al-Zubair region of southern Iraq, close to the Kuwaiti border.

He said the "kidnapped troops will be equally treated as al-Qaida prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay."

He said al-Qaida will soon release a videotape of the captured soldiers and will ask to swap them with al-Qaida suspects being held by the United States.

Good news for Bush: he won't be tried for war crimes in Belgium.

"The Belgian House of Representatives yesterday decided to curtail the controversial law seeking to prosecute war crimes and genocide perpetrators from around the world... According to the amendments, the Belgian court will only be permitted to try people suspected of committing war crimes in states that are not democratic and do not grant the right to a fair trial."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=279975&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Belgium curtails war crimes law

S.P.

That is an excellent resource. Hope people will be able to read it.

hm. no confirmation yet about all of al-jazeera being kicked out of baghdad. the only thing i've found is this: The Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera said that Iraqi officials were expelling one of its reporters from Baghdad and barring another from reporting. The station interrupted a regular newscast to announce Iraq's Information Ministry had informed it that correspondent Diar al-Omari, an Iraqi, could no longer report for the network and that visiting correspondent Tayseer Allouni must leave the country.

Re: Abdullah

This is a public statement, meant for domestic and regional consumption, to maintain stability until Iraqis begin to let their gratitude be known. Nothing more.

this is from flash cxxx: 4:11; Stephen has an interesting question here.

This question made me remember a thought that has crossed my mind from time to time when thinking about this conflict. It is: given that the Iraqies are more secular-- SH is know as a SECULAR dictator, do the Iraqies as a nation value there lives anymore than the so called "finatical arab", and if so will it have an influence on the outcome of this war? This is a physcological question.

Any additional thoughts?

Guess I'm paranoid. But doesn't it seem like there has been a big PR blitz today to create the impression that we've substantially softened up the resistance around Baghdad? This really frightens me because historically we have always grossly over-estimated the effectiveness of air power on troop deployments. After the fact the BDA is almost always shown to be wishful thinking. Is this Rummy softening up the brass as much as the aviators softening up the defenses? I think that they are trying to make the argument that it wouldn't be irresponsible to send the 3rd ID with support from the Marines into Baghdad. I fear this could be a tragic blunder. Sounds to me like the neocons are thinking about rolling the dice again. Let's hope not.

The URL has a great story of our young Marines. Moving, to say the least.

BBC Radio reports coalition forces at less than 50KM from Baghdad as opposed to the Reuters 32KM

MOST excellent question , parrish...
i think one of the misapprehensions of the coalition plan was not grasping the fact that it is impossible to threaten a death worshipper...
but, then, it's hard for a life lover to conceive the nature of such evil...
you almost have to see it to believe it could exist...

has anyone noticed that the BBC news website hasn't been updated since just after 15:00 GMT (it's now almost 01:00 GMT)? what's up with that? the "latest from iraq" page (URL changes each night) has no data after 14:00 GMT either.

DAY LIGHT SAVING TIME OR SUMMER TIME

IRAQ went on it April 1st and comes off Oct 1st.

http://www.worldtimezone.com/daylight.htm

The USA except AZ and parts of IN go on Sunday April 6th

Amis

SW,

Re: "PR Blitz" today.

So how would you suggest one distinguish between a big (actual) news day and a "PR blitz"?

Let me guess: If the coalition reports it, and it is good news, it must be a PR blitz. If the Iraqi foreign minister, al-J, the al-Guardian, or the BBC 'reports' it, and it's bad news, it must be true.

Am I close?

"Victory is at hand." -- Iraqi Foreign Min.

Indeed.

Bush Approves Use of Tear Gas in Battlefield

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0402-01.htm

[orig article from the NYT]

This violates the Chemical Weapons Convention, and may lead to escalation ("In four major uses of chemical weapons in the past — by combatants in World War I; by the Italians in Ethiopia; by the Egyptians in Yemen; and in the Iran-Iraq war — deployment was preceded by use of non-lethal agents") - but that may be exactly what Bush wants. Provoking Saddam into using his alleged stocks of VX will at least prove that he has them, and the US can then claim it was right all along. Surely that's got to be worth a few thousand dead or horribly maimed US soldiers and civillians?

Idiot/Savant
http://norightturn.blogspot.com

Piranha,

Not true - try reloading or emptying your browsers cache.

Coming soon to a TV mini series near you,

SAVING PRIVATE LYNCH

Check your local listings for time and channel.

Just one question, Why was she the only one of her squad keep alive?

Amis

ch, I'm getting the same thing as Piranha.

Arafat had a role in the release of the journalists. Looks like they were of Palestinian origin. Sounds like there was some favors pulled in on this one.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=279971&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

The link worked well enough when I tried it; TONS of good material here; thank you.

And for the millionth time, thank you, SP.

SJ

ch, i know how to work my browsers. :) so, what's the last date you see when you go there? which edition are you using, international or uk?

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!

http://www.depression2.tv/chronicles/gulfwars.html

Does this site read HTML?

Amis

A little comic relief from Primary Main Objective: a firsthand view of the television corps in Iraq. See also "Dork Warfare has broken out!" Kevin, a Navy logistics guy on the ground, says that the Army is filtering a lot of his preferred blogreading.

Piranha,

I'm using the international:

Last Updated:  Thursday, 3 April, 2003, 00:52 GMT 01:52 UK

Perhaps it's just my impression, but since BBC News launched their redesign their appears to be much less "fresh" content on the front page.

Better route: Go to www.ceip.org and use the menu. Still slow. Heard Joe Cirincioni on NPR last night. Very impressive. I still swear by (and at, a little: he misses a bit) Anatol Lieven's piece in the LRB, which is also online at the CEIP.

http://www.ceip.org/files/publications/2002-10-22-lieven-lrb.asp

Got a question.

The regular Iraqi Army has five corps: I and V Corps are up in the north, and II/III/IV were assigned to the south.

Whatever became of them?

Did they largely (as in ~25-50%) desert as shock and awe predicted?

Or did they put up an effort to fight and then all went home?

Or did we scatter them to the four winds after they put up an effort to fight making them little use in fighting?

I'm sure some elements are hanging around the cities with the Baathists and the fedayeen (with various degrees of willingness), but it seems over half of the Iraqi regular army has just kind of disappeared.

I doubt they'd be much to hit us now -- I mean, letting your capital be surrounded is not exactly the apex of modern tactics.

I think this might be one of the things that makes post-war analysis interesting.

Stiil confused about the interview with King Abdullah. This all comes from AFP. Does anyone have more? Is this just propaganda so he can continue to cooperate? What gives?

Start Quote:
Got a question.

The regular Iraqi Army has five corps: I and V Corps are up in the north, and II/III/IV were assigned to the south.

Whatever became of them?

Did they largely (as in ~25-50%) desert as shock and awe predicted?

Or did they put up an effort to fight and then all went home?

Or did we scatter them to the four winds after they put up an effort to fight making them little use in fighting?

I'm sure some elements are hanging around the cities with the Baathists and the fedayeen (with various degrees of willingness), but it seems over half of the Iraqi regular army has just kind of disappeared.

I doubt they'd be much to hit us now -- I mean, letting your capital be surrounded is not exactly the apex of modern tactics.

I think this might be one of the things that makes post-war analysis interesting.
Posted by Shawn Pickrell at April 2, 2003 08:05 PM
End Quote:

Shawn, a good question. I posted this question in a couple of places, with no answer so far (I will check newsgroups soon). According to my 5 year old info, there are 17 iraqi regular army divisions.

Perhapts Saddam considers them so unreliable that he put them out of "surrender" range. Maybe many in them just went home.

Something from a newsgroup:

http://www.snappingturtle.net/jmc/flit/maps.html

Someone else in that newsgroup claims:

----
The info i got r as of 24 hours ago .

16 Reg Inf Div, 4 Reg inf Div in Mosul,
1 Reg Mez Div between Mosul and Kirkuk
7 Reg Inf div, 2 Reg Inf Div, 8 Reg. Inf. Div.38 Reg Inf Div
5 Reg Mez Div in and near Kirkuk
15 Reg Inf Div in Tozkurmanto, south of Kirkuk
7 RG "Adnan" Mez Div in Tikrit
3 Reg Arm Div, 4 Reg Inf Div NE of Baghdad guardign the southern Kurdish
areas(the parts closest to Baghdad)
6 RG " Nebuchadnezzar" Mez Div, 2 RG "Medina" Arm Div SW of Baghdad, in
Karbala, Al Hindiyah and Al Musayyib area of rather what is left of em
1 RG "Hannmurabi" Mez Div in Al Hillah, again or rather whats left of it
5 RG "Baghdad" Mez Div, RG "Al Nedaa" Arm div in Al Kut, again or rather
whats left of em, (seems but my own assesment is that to some extent more
bypassed than actually dead yet)
11 Reg Inf Div in An Samawah (seems its been bypassed in large could be
more or less destroyed)
55 Reg Div of whats left of it, in Basra
----

I cant voich one way or another for this info.

Mad Dog

this is from flash cxxx: 4:11; Stephen has an interesting question here.

This question made me remember a thought that has crossed my mind from time to time when thinking about this conflict. It is: given that the Iraqies are more secular-- SH is know as a SECULAR dictator, do the Iraqies as a nation value there lives anymore than the so called "finatical arab", and if so will it have an influence on the outcome of this war? This is a physcological question.

Any additional thoughts?

I would like to add something to this previous posting.

Will it have an effect on post-war reconstruction strategies/polices?

Terrorist attack on British Consulate in Turkey

Nothing major. A bomb placed at the entrance at about midnight local time.

No further details yet

Whatever happened to that british special forces raid that is said to have failed near Mozul? It all went quiet?

stunny
your points about the U.S. supplying weapons to SH in the 80's are certainly embarrassing but , we are not in the 80's anymore & those facts solve nothing .
U.S made mistakes
now were paying for them with US & IRQ blood & $$
but I still dont see any better way to deal with the problems now not 1980 .
still waiting for your better solution
as much as I hate the military option , I feel we have no other option & I have no choice but to stand behind the decisions that the gov. we elected have made .
And I would personally risk my life to defend my countries choices

re: PFC Lynch

Amis, it would all be speculation, don't know who captured her, who tipped off SF (according to CNN, was tipoff) as to her whereabouts, don't know her condition versus any others present (was it just other MIA's? was it all MIA's and POW's?) I would hope we could limit th eerie specualtion until we have any actual information.

Shawn Pickerell;

Your Quote: "The regular Iraqi Army has five corps: I and V Corps are up in the north, and II/III/IV were assigned to the south.
Whatever became of them?
Did they largely (as in ~25-50%) desert as shock and awe predicted?"

While major News outlets have seldom uses "Corps" terminology, it has been using "Divisions" to describe Iraqi forces.

Several news outlets reported last night and today that the Medina and Baghdad divisions have been eliminated as any semblance of fighting forces.

One outlet summized that some of these troops have likely been "folded into" what's left.

via CNN - New Reuter's report states Iraqi forces are moving south in numbers. Looking for a link to the story but don't see one yet.

The link for the good resource good resource should be:

http://www.ceip.org/files/Iraq/index.htm

Sean has link up now, good going.

BoG,

Republican Guard Move South of Baghdad to Block US
Wed April 2, 2003 08:35 PM ET
SOUTH OF BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Units of Iraq's Republican Guard were moving south from Baghdad on Thursday to try to block a U.S. advance and to reinforce positions around the capital's airport, U.S. military sources said on Thursday.

U.S. spy planes had spotted the Iraqi reinforcements moving south from the capital during the night, the sources told Reuters correspondent Luke Baker.

He said that U.S. forces, about 19 miles from the southern outskirts of the city, were firing rockets north at the Iraqi positions.

You can find it on the reuters homepage.

SP: Link from "good resource" (admittedly so, but. . . ) about chemical weapons found in Ansar al-Islam compund offers more definite picture (and thus I think *opinion*) than un-embedded Globe reporter Charles Senott, who visited the compound yesterday. See links to Philadelphia Enquirer and Boston Globe reports below, with exceprts.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/5536103.htm

HALABJA, Iraq - U.S. specialists have found evidence that a Kurdish Islamic militant group linked by the Bush administration to al-Qaeda was concocting chemical weapons in the mountains of northeast Iraq, a U.S. military commander said yesterday.

The special-forces soldiers also found recipes for three forms of chlorine gas and for ricin, a deadly toxin derived from castor beans, American intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/092/nation/Signs_of_plan_for_chemical_arms_reported+.shtml

Signs of plan for chemical arms reported

By Charles M. Sennott, Globe Staff, 4/2/2003

ALABJA, Iraq -- US special forces, in an unusual press briefing yesterday in northern Iraq, said they had found preliminary evidence that Islamic militants in this area were intending to develop chemical and biological weapons before a two-day military offensive disrupted the group's operations.

A battalion commander for the traditionally secretive special forces, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the air and ground offensive coordinated with Kurdish troops in recent days against Ansar al-Islam in northeastern Iraq was a ''model'' operation in the war on terrorism that revealed signs the group was trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.

''We have found documents and evidence that would indicate the presence of chemical and/or biological weapons,'' the commander said, without specifying what they found.

He said the materials would be analyzed and that the results would be made public. Those results would be a key test of the US State Department's allegation that Ansar al-Islam was experimenting with the use of chemical and biological weapons at its headquarters in the village of Sargat, which was reduced to rubble by intensive airstrikes.

A senior Kurdish official said that a team of CIA specialists in chemical weapons had been flown in to northern Iraq to process the evidence and presumably return to the United States to analyze it

Sennott was on Fresh Air today, and he called the "chemical lab" very "crude."

Listen here:
http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml;jsessionid=L15ZO5G2SQHWVLA5AINCF3Y?todayDate=current

Sean Paul & everyone--

just want to say thanks-- this site has been a refuge all through the war. It has mattered a lot. The level of discussion (mostly high) the concise exchange of info, experience & expertise has been super-comforting in these troubled perilous times.

now that the suspense is (mostly) over, I'm checking out-- but wanted to say, hail and farewell, friends.

see you at the elections!

CNN - Bush belives God is on his side in war.

Good piece on the "overrated Republican guard." Nut graf:

The current head-on tank battles against the Republican Guard, the subject of much dread anticipation before the war, may turn out to be the easiest phase of all.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2081055/

Interesting. Ansar al Islam is an Iran-supported terrorist group in Iraqi Kurdistan. It's a big soup.

Jim Bunning's bachelor's degree is in economics and his first career was in baseball (and a darned good player he was, too):

http://bunning.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Biography.Home

no legal scholar.

Paris increasingly isolated.

Paris, Berlin, Bruxelles form core of European Defense Integration.

Thats a bit contradictory isn't it?

I think it is bizarre and partial opinionizing to claim that France's list of allies grows *thin*. Germany is just acknowledging that the US won't back out, and won't decide to back out quickly, and so long as that's so it would be nice if the war ended suddenly tomorrow. It's hardly an endorsement of the war, though that's the way US media is playing it.

in any case, most of the world is still opposed, so France still has company.

Jim's Bunning's first speech on the floor of the Senate:

[Congressional Record for Friday, February 12, 1999.]

This is my first speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I had hoped my opening speech would be about Social Security. [. . . ]

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way. Of necessity, my opening speech in this body is about the Articles of Impeachment against President Clinton. It was not my choice!

In fact, none of us have much choice in this matter. Here in the U.S. Senate, we have been charged with the responsibility of looking at the facts as presented by the managers from the House of Representatives. Each of us took an oath to do impartial justice.

And the Constitution doesn't give us much wiggle room when it comes to choices. The Framers were pretty explicit about out options. If we determine that the President is guilty of the charges as outlined in the two Articles of Impeachment, the penalty is removal from office. We have no other choice.

http://www.americanpolitics.info/clinton/trial/statements/bunning.shtml

I was referring to the Iraqi regular army:

I Corps (near Kirkuk)
2nd Infantry
5th Mech. Infantry
8th Infantry
38th Infantry

II Corps (E of Baghdad, I think)
3rd Armoured
15th Infantry
34th Infantry

III Corps (Near Basra, last I checked)
6th Armoured
11th Infantry
51st Mechanised

IV Corps (near al-Amarah)
10th Armoured
14th Infantry
18th Infantry

V Corps (near Mosul)
1st Mech. Infantry
4th Infantry
7th Infantry
16th Infantry

The Iraqi I and V Corps have to be better equipped than the Kurdish pesh murgas/173d Airborne Bde.

Yet all they've done is retreat ever since the 173d paradropped into theatre and the Kurds got serious about advancing.

The Kurds have even generously offered (per a Command Post article) to take Mosul and Kirkuk with US airpower. Granted, Mosul is being anchored with the Adnan Division of the Republican Guard, but one wonders if the general panic strikes the V Corps, the panic might catch them too. In any case, it'll be rather hard to defend if you're one division facing several thousand angry Kurds, and overwhelming US firepower.

Anyone wanting an accout on Barbara Bodine's complete incompetence should see the Frontline eposide "The Man who Knew". Bodine was the ambassador to Yemen during the Cole bombing. According to Frontline she consistently thwarted the investigation that may have turned up Bin Laden. Powell has now appointed her the post-war administrator of Iraq!! [editorial] Thank God Rummy is challenging this.... [/editorial]

Just one question, Why was she the only one of her squad keep alive?

Amis

If i'm not mistaken there are five others who were shown on TV from her company that survived also...

From the New York Times:

"President Bush seemed disposed to having a special U.N. representative working in a postwar Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/02/international/worldspecial/03POLICY.html?tntemail0 "

"The current head-on tank battles against the Republican Guard, the subject of much dread anticipation before the war"

Who on earth was dreading this? The US military was stating confidently that an Abrams and a T-72 could trade shells from a few dozen meters and the Abrams would remain functional.

What we have to fear is our relatively sparse armor getting caught up in urban debris, giving the T-72s a chance to pounce on infantry or bradley positions.

Head on combat is our wet dream.

thanks, ch. tried on different machines here, same result -- maybe a problem with the BBC's server farm; you're lucky and we're not.

15 dead and 50 reported injured in a bomb explosion in the philippines, says AFP. more detail from the philippines daily news.

The Nida Division must be entirely committed to the fight, and if they're moving the Nebuchadnezzar Division into the fight, the Iraqi government forces must either be dismounting or getting pummeled as they reinforce the southern front (which, of course, means the northern front now has zilch backing it up, and if the Adnan gives way, the entire front is lost.)

At times, politicians really do behave like a bunch of high scool students during lunch time.

7 dead in Blackhawk shotdown...

I'm sorry, but I have to complain about the newest Robert Fisk link. Robert Fisk is not a "correspondent," he's an anti-American exaggerator with a vested interest in distorting things for his cause. He spins more than a DJ at a New York nightclub. Seriously.

Shawn Pickrell;

As to your question re; Degradation of Iraqi Divisions:

The New York Times gives some good details here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/02/international/worldspecial/02CND-MARI.html?tntemai

BLACKHAWK DOWN!

I have been waiting for 13 days to post that headline!

Lost is Southern Iraq with 7 fatal and 4 injuried.

Amis

Case study--here's when I began to distrust the Centcom briefings. At the briefing of March 27, 2003, General Brooks said:

"On the humanitarian side in Basra, we know that Basra had had its water turned off for some time. We believe the regime did that." Brooks, Centcom briefing, March 27, 2003
http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/transcripts/20030329.htm

I thought, Ooh, that's strange and bad, that the Iraqi regime would turn off water for its own people. So I looked into it.

Actually, Gen. Brooks had NO IDEA that the regime did that--he knew that the water was off and that was bad for the civilians in Basra, so he spun it into propaganda.

What really happened was that we and/or the UK bombed the power lines, which cut electricity to the pumping station and treatment plants. In other words, the coalition caused the (severe) water crisis. This according to the International Red Cross and the Associated Press.

AP: "The city's electricity was knocked out Friday during U.S.-British bombing. That in turn shut down Basra's water pumping and treatment plants. The U.N. Children's Fund estimated up to 100,000 Basra children under age 5 were at immediate risk of severe disease."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030327/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_battlefield_128

See also the Basra water page of the ICRC:
http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList74/BBAF31E9F62C08EAC1256CF5004C59BC

Centcom's reliability has been disgracefully low. They have got to stop covering up and spinning things. And start releasing up-to-date casualty figures, too.

Piranah,

Looking for anything specific - I can just copy-paste over for you?

Sorry u have been disappointed till now amis! geeeesh

zoolker,

Bodine objected to an FBI agent who wanted to carry sidearms in Yemen, during his investigation-- classic case of state dept. vs. law enforcement. It got nasty over tactics. it may not be a bad thing to have a diplomat sensitive to the laws of a nation be an administator.

See this also:

Barbara K. Bodine, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, is currently Diplomat in Residence at the University of Southern California, Santa Barbara. She last served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen. During her posting in Sanaa, the U.S.S. Cole was bombed in a terrorist attack. In 1999, she negotiated for hours to release three Americans kidnapped in Yemen. In 2001, a flight carrying Ambassador Bodine and 90 other passengers from Yemen was hijacked mid-flight. The plane was diverted to Africa, where it landed without further incident.

http://www.udel.edu/global/agenda/2002/bodinebio.html

How can you say that France is against regime change? The article you quoted from contains the following:

"France's government has made a string of official statements aimed at making sure its opposition to the war is not interpreted as support for the Iraqi dictator. Both the prime minister and foreign minister have insisted that France hopes the U.S.-led coalition wins the war.

``Naturally, we hope for the end of Saddam Hussein's regime,'' government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told reporters Wednesday in Paris."

Strikes me that Fisk will be the next one kicked out of Iraq if he keeps writing about Iraqi defenses like that.

Delgado, that's really funny. Robert Fisk is arguably the best war correspondent writing today. He's been given all kinds of awards--he's got an amazing book out called Pity the Nation, about Lebanon--and he's an extraordinarily bright guy. LISTEN to what he's saying--we're lucky to have him on the scene.

You got to love those British snipers.

They sure like their work!

Remind me not to get on their bad side.

Amis

Are we officially at war with Syria, then?

Posted by DavidZ at April 2, 2003 07:13 PM

============================================

Not yet but I think it is a toss up between Syria and Iran next.

Hey who wants to pay to moblize that force again in a few years. Lets just get it all done on the 2003 budget.

Amis

re: "spin" in Centcom briefings

The April 2 a.m. (EST) briefing also had Brig. general Brooks claiming Iraqis were *shooting* from the Ali mosque in Najaf, but Ryan Clicote, embedded with the 101st told CNN's Paula Zahn this a.m. that his discussions with troops indicted that Iraqis were shooting, taking cover (he used the word "sanctuary") in the mosque and then exiting to shoot. There may not be a tactical difference here; however, it sems unnecessary to me to charatcerize gunfights in a way more extreme than they are.

cite for Chilcote's comments different from Centcom:

"U.S. Central Command has said Iraqi troops are using the mosque as a covert base. Iraqi soldiers have taken over the gilded dome of the tomb of Ali -- a landmark venerated by Shiite Muslims as the burial site of the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, these U.S. officials said."

"Commanders in the field do not believe that Iraqi soldiers are firing from the mosque, Chilcote said. The soldiers used the mosque only as a sanctuary, running to nearby buildings to fire on U.S. troops, he added."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/02/sprj.irq.najaf.greeting/index.html

Yes, an important distinction, lee. I suppose some measure of demonization of the enemy is unavoidable in a war, and in the buildup to a war, but we've gone overboard.

re: fisk's latest dribble (not a fan, can ya tell?)

Is he really so ignorant to think a PALM GROVE which offers VISUAL concealment affords the element of surprise? He demonstrates a level of ignorance matched only by the Iraqi commanders who think hiding 40-ton behemoth of metal under a canopy of vegetation is fooling anyone other someone overhead who might be relying purely on visual means of location (maybe a bird?).

Newsflash: JStars (among other platforms) aren't concerned with peering thru palm groves, camoflauge nettings, and into revetments.

idiots, and fisk along with them. does he have a clue, or is he really just out there slinging it with the best of 'em?

-lb

Delgado -

Fisk is a correspondent for the London Independent. He has received the British International Journalist of the Year award many times and he has covered the Middle East for something like 20 years.

You might not like what he writes, but thems the facts.

T

Shawn, where did you get your info ? It matches what I have in a 5 year old article (Command Mag #50) ? Either the Iraqis havnt changed much up, or were looking at the same source.

The command mag also claims 7 RG divisions in the OOB + a special "Presidential Guard armored div".

Maybe they cannibalized one of the RG units to fill in the others ?

Supposendly elmts 1st infantry are being flwon into Northern Iraq, but I havnt heard anything about that lately.

Mad Dog

Jim Bunning must be up for re-election or taking too much Viagra. What's his legal background on treason? Does he always claim the moral high ground in such flashy ways?

so fisk toodles around in a bus close to the front? interesting. that corresponds with other reports i've heard, that baghdad is by no means closed off, and that there seem to be few obvious military preparations. hm. (as to fisk spinning things, yup, i think so, but so does nearly everyone else -- which is why i come here to take in the various spins and hope to see some truth develop in the centre.)

here's a bit of UPI analysis, which has the brits worried about an iraqi surprise.

The Fisk article comes off as a "Go Saddam !" piece if I ever read one. If anyone thinks Iraqi officials are unconcerned I have a bridge to sell you.

Mad Dog

dejah thoris:

I believe bunning read the Constitution:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. "

Arnett went on Iraq TV and gave a motivational speech to the Hussein regime, instilling confidence in the enemy.

I got it from http://www.strategypage.com/iraqwar/map.asp and just updated what he put in with what I've heard from the battlefield.

In any case, it seems most of the resistance remaining is from Baathists and fedayeen, who despite their small numbers can put up a fairly lengthy fight if our rules of engagement are like they are. So the Iraqi regular army either deserted (I wonder how many fragging incidents occurred) or has been effectively dispersed after attempting resistance.

In either case, this is a testimony to either shock and awe (which wasn't expected to work as well on the Republican Guard, the Baathists and the fedayeen) or to the firepower of our forces, or both.

I think the Rumsfeldians may have failed in estimating the strength of the fedayeen and Baathists. I had heard zilch about them in the months leading up to war. However, they were accurate in their estimating of the strength of the Iraqi regular army and Republican Guard (whom Saddam doesn't trust enough to station in Baghdad.)

Yes, I'm wondering where the 1st Infantry is floating around these days. I'm sensing we might be in for a surprise.

How hard would it be to come out north of the northern of the two lakes to the SW of Baghdad, essentially putting them in a position to slam at Tikrit or to pinch the forces in Mosul between the Kurds, the 173d and the 1ID? This might require help from Jordan, which might also indicate Abdullah's unusually strong language (why did he wait until now to start minding the war so much?)

The past paragraph is just pure speculation of course.

delgado I agree completely. Fisk may have a few awards but his reputation for distorting the facts is well known. "Fisking" is used as a derogatory term in the world of journalism.

Shawn , I have bookmarked the link. Thanks. Looks like they havnt changed much in 5 years. I wonder if the "Special Republican Guard" division is the "Presidential Guard" unit in the article I have. If so, it is reputed to have 14,000 troops and several hundred "lion of Babylon" remanufactured T-72s and an otherwise complete TO&E.

It seems as if the regular army divisions are out of it, unless there is some big surprise ahead. I agree that the real surprise was the Feyadeen and how staunchly they would fight. Well, they are brave, but they sure die quick.

As for the 1st ID, while they could get a number of troops in, I doubt they can build up the vehicular forces very fast. Isnt the C-17 the only M1 carrying air transport we have ? In any case, the Iraqi troops seem to be done a lot of running just from whatever we have up there.

ch, thanks much for the offer, but i am not looking for anything in specific, just scanning the BBC as one of the more reliable sources of news.

Fisking? The guy is brilliant. Idle character assassination is beneath you.

Fisk on cluster bombed civilians...

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=393458

Nick -

"fisking" is not a "journalism term". It's a insulting term coined by right-wing web pundits.

I don't think they like Fisk all that much.

;-)

The Fisk piece is the first I've seen that describes the Iraqi concealed arms in Bagdad in detail. That makes it valuable information regardless of bias. It is true that Fisk inserts analysis and opinion in his reportage. But he makes it clear what he is doing. A more "neutral" journalist could just as readily insert his own opinion, but would credit it to unnamed sources. Cslling on Fisk to attribute opinions in an age of anonymous attributes is silly.

This does look to me like a possible trap. The "missing" army or suicide volunteers could be waiting to hit our supply lines as soon as we are engaged with Bagdad. The war seems to be going a lot better today than it was yesterday, and I don't see why the change. I see domestic political reasons, but not military ones. Could be we're getting suckered into getting fully engaged before the reinforcements arrive.

From what I've read so far, I'm not convinced that Jessica Lynch was a POW at all. I don't think she was captured by the Iraqis. From what I understand, after she was wounded she wandered away from the scene and eventually walked into the hospital, where was treated well and sympathetically by the medical staff. When the troops arrived to rescue her, they simply asked where she was, and were shown to her bed by her doctor, who then helped to get her ready to be moved.
I'm sure you'll let me know if I'm wrong. My assumption is based on an amalgamtion of news reports, both Iraqi and coalition.
I'm glad she's safe and on her way home, and I hope that there are a lot more happy endings.

WashPost has her as a war hero who kept shooting till she ran out of ammo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14879-2003Apr2.html

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