Arab News has reporters in the Basra/Umm Qasr area and they have filed a series of stories documenting that the Coalition analysis of Iraqi citizens' attitudes is right on. These reports and others like them will help sustain us during the difficult days ahead, when civilians will be tragic casualties and while the Arab and much of Western media pound us without mercy.

OUTSKIRTS OF BASRA, 28 March 2003
Arab News asked several of the refugees waiting to enter Basra what they thought of regime change. Accompanying Arab News were several international TV crews. What the refugees said on and off camera were very different things. On camera, the general feeling among the crowd was sorrow at losing Saddam. Off camera, the citizens of Umm Qasr and Basra appeared genuinely exhilarated at the prospect of a brighter future, after Saddam had been removed.

UMM QASR/BASRA, 30 March 2003
When we finally made it to Safwan, Iraq, what we saw was utter chaos. Iraqi men, women and children were playing it up for the TV cameras, chanting: "With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you Saddam."

I took a young Iraqi man, 19, away from the cameras and asked him why they were all chanting that particular slogan, especially when humanitarian aid trucks marked with the insignia of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society, were distributing some much-needed food. His answer shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. He said: "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."

Different versions of that very quote, but with a common theme, I would come to hear several times over the next three days I spent in Iraq. The people of Iraq are terrified of Saddam Hussein.

UMM QASR/BASRA, 31 March 2003
That was when I first got the sense that these people were really eager to see Saddam and Baath gone. 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.

Thanks to OpinionJournal's Best of the Web Today for noticing these.

Insight Magazine has a new article summarizing the impact of information technology on our war-fighting tactics, including how the concept of "swarming" is emerging in Iraq. High-octane stuff, especially for the unfortunate enemy on the receiving end.

This intricate orchestra of man, missile and metal, reaching the outskirts of Baghdad in less than five days, was possible only because of the quantum leap in computerized information technology that the U.S. military has applied to warfighting since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The sheer size, scope and speed of modern warfare requires extensive computerization and networking among forces. With the old three-dimensional battlefield now the four-dimensional battle space of today, with time as an ever more-crucial factor, commanders require real-time "topsight" - a bird's-eye view made possible by wider bandwidth, greater computing power and more creativity than ever.

Network-centric warfare, in the infancy of implementation under Rumsfeld's transformation of the U.S. defense community into a coherent post-Cold War machine, goes against the typical top-down discipline of the military. It encourages more horizontal communications and networking, thus empowering lower-ranking officers. New military tactics are emerging, among them "swarming" - simultaneous, networked attacks reminiscent of swarms of insects, attacking an overwhelmed target from all directions and by land, sea, air and space.

A hometown report from Washington, Pennsylvania features the family of Lt. Jeffrey Abbadini, a Navy pilot serving on the USS Kitty Hawk, and talks about the srong support by family and local veterans for our military.

Donna and Joe Abbadini joined family members, veterans and residents Saturday at a rally to show support for their son and members of the U.S. military fighting in Iraq. Despite blustery winds and rain, the rally on the steps of Washington County Courthouse drew about 100 flag-waving supporters many with yellow ribbons pinned to shirts and hats. The prevailing sentiment among those in attendance is that Americans need to support the troops regardless of their feelings about the war.

The Fresno Bee reports that the Cochran family has two Navy pilots in their thoughts: Daniel Cochran, flying from the Kitty Hawk, and Christopher Cochran, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln.

From Pearl Harbor to present-day Iraq -- more than six decades -- Cochran men have fought wars in the Navy, while their wives waited for their return. Both of Christopher's grandfathers were in World War II. His father, De Ford, left his mother for the Vietnam War right after they were married in summer 1967. All of their marriages endured.

In Kent, Wash., De Ford Cochran said he does not worry about Christopher, though Charlene, his wife of 35 years, admits to a bit of anxiety about her son. De Ford and Charlene have eight children, including seven sons. Christopher is not their only child in combat. Another son, Daniel, is flying an F/A-18 from the USS Kitty Hawk. "I sleep well at night," De Ford said. "They're well-trained, and they're in a pretty good spot in those F-18s."

The Sun (UK) may not be considered a "serious" newspaper by the smart set, but they do get some good stories and they definitely have a way with words. Today's editorial left me gobsmacked.

Will all the moaners, doubters and wobblers just belt up.

The TV's full of them, pouring scorn on the achievements of our superb Forces. These "experts" keep insisting the war's not going as planned. That shows their ignorance. In war, nothing can be planned. Our top soldier, General Sir Mike Jackson, knows that. He says it's nonsense to suggest our armies are bogged down. TV coverage often gives a misleading view, he says. No one sees the undercover successes of the SAS and the US Delta Force. The fact that America is sending another 130,000 troops into battle is a good sign.

We must remember one thing: Before we can talk about what happens after the war, we first have to win it.

That means doing whatever it takes, for however long it takes. The point will come when Saddam Hussein - if he's still alive - will realise his regime is going to lose. It will dawn on the Iraqi people that the coalition forces aren't going to go away. We have to prove to them that we have the stomach for a long, hard fight.

It would help if the TV turncoats could stop talking twaddle.

Knight-Ridder continues to focus on the negative (headline includes "U.S. blunders"), but offers more interesting analysis of Iraqi tactics; it's worth reading as a good summary. Again, determination to stay the course is key, and victory is the only worthy goal.

While American military planners have concentrated since the Persian Gulf War on making more and better use of high technology, their Iraqi counterparts appear to have been taking lessons from every battle the United States, Great Britain and Israel have either lost or failed to win.

If there's a central organizing principle to the Iraqi strategy, it appears to have been drawn from Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia: If you can inflict enough American casualties and make enough Americans think they've lost the moral high ground, you can lose the battles but win the war.

Finally, like the Yugoslavs, the Iraqis seem to be trying to preserve their best forces, the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard, for last by moving and concealing them. Despite three months of NATO air attacks, the Yugoslavs managed to protect more than 90 percent of their army.

The author does write an honest conclusion:

It isn't clear, however, whether the Iraqis read all the way to the end of the Yugoslav textbook. The Yugoslavs lost, and many of their leaders are now on trial, accused of war crimes.

The media apparently got their feelings hurt last week when their stupid questions were described as "silly." Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary, had a series of hilarious exchanges with empty-headed questioners Friday, as the press tried to blame the administration for supposed wishful thinking about the course of the war. Two stood out for me as symptomatic of the media's dogged refusal to accept the blindingly obvious.

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think that we are seeing some areas, for example, just like in Afghanistan -- one newspaper today on its front page reported that the Marines and the Army are "bogged down." Now, I don't know anybody who would support that notion from a military point of view, that our troops are "bogged down." Yet, that is what one newspaper reported this morning.

Q You did very little to lower expectations in the run up to this. Even if you didn't raise them yourself, you did nothing to lower what we were hearing from the Pentagon and from other outside pundits about how well, how quickly this war would go.

MR. FLEISCHER: I could not dispute that more strongly, and let me cite it for you. If you take a look at what the President said on October 7th in Cincinnati in a major speech to the country, the President said, "Military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures. There is no easy or risk-free course of action." That's what the President said some six months ago, five months ago.

And certainly in many of the statements that I've made from this podium, I said, even prior to any action beginning, I said on March 18th, "I think people have to prepare for the fact that it may not be short." On March 21st, even before the air campaign began over Baghdad, in my morning briefing I was asked about talks for unconditional surrender, how were the talks for the unconditional surrender. I said, I think it's important for the American people to remember that this still can be a long, lengthy, and dangerous engagement. This is, as the President said, the opening phase. It can be a long, lengthy, dangerous engagement because this is war.

Q Ari, in light of what you just said about the President being careful not to put a timetable on it, how does he feel about the Vice President saying that it will take weeks, not months?

MR. FLEISCHER: And then what did the Vice President say in the next sentence right after he said that?

Q I don't have that with me.

MR. FLEISCHER: He said, I think it will go relatively quickly, but we can't count on that. He said, weeks rather than -- he was asked, weeks, months. He said, weeks rather than months. And then his next sentence was, "There is always the possibility of complications that you can't anticipate." And, obviously, one week into the battle, I don't know that anybody can draw any conclusions about duration to judge whether the Vice President is precise or not, it's accurate or not.

Q Are you saying you've run into complications that you did not anticipate?

And so on, and on, and on....

Stephen Goode, writing in Insight magazine, examines the consequences of the Western democracies' collective failure in the 1930s to check the rise of aggressive, dictatorial regimes in Germany, Japan, and Italy. The folly of depending on disarmament is clear now, but blind leaders then were unable (or unwilling) to act, and millions died needlessly as a result. What is less known is the critical role of the 1930s peace movement in inhibiting action and encouraging the dictators. The parallels to today could not be more clear.

The great powers did more than merely fail to act. French, British and U.S. leaders often looked the other way, ignoring clear signs of the impending horror. They hoped, perhaps, that what was not seen and acknowledged would go away and not have to be dealt with even by force of character.

Or they were obsessed with an equally dangerous notion, a belief -- against all evidence and common sense -- that by disarmament and through frequent calls for world peace they could persuade the aggressive powers to forget their ambitions, sheathe their swords and make war no more. Instead those powers chose to rearm, grew militarily strong and answered every call for peace and disarmament with stunning acts of aggression that should have made their intentions clear to the world but didn't.

Why the failure to say "no"? Why the inability to act together for common defense? In part the war-weariness engendered by World War I was to blame. In part it was the the economic problems caused by the Great Depression. But a major player was the pacifist movement of the 1930s, and the havoc it created cannot be overestimated. Hitler, Mussolini and the military leaders of Japan took comfort in the pacifism of the Western nations and made cynical use of it to advance their own causes. Instead of bowing before the moral superiority the pacifists claimed for themselves, the aggressor nations interpreted pacifism as weakness and exploited it.

The EA-6B Prowlers from the USS Kitty Hawk are getting a bigger piece of the action in Iraq this week, including firing their HARM missiles.

Slow-moving and packed with electronic equipment, the Prowler radar-jamming plane usually stays clear of battle. But with the campaign against Baghdad's defenses heating up, the Prowlers are joining in the strikes. It's a risk for the vulnerable aircraft, but their crews say they've been eager to get into the fight.

"It's about time," said Lt. Doug Graber, an electronic warfare officer who was on a EA-6B Prowler that fired a missile Saturday - the second strike by a Prowler from the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in two days.

Mansoor Ijaz has a new take on the reasons we were unsuccessful in getting a deal with Turkey, and what should be done to rebuild our relationship with this critical ally. As usual, he is talking about issues that others simply don't address.

That Turkey's military was willing to withstand such overwhelming financial pressures by withholding critical support for the U.S. proposal is less a function of fears that a postwar Kurdistan could be born in northern Iraq, engendering similar separatist tendencies in southern Turkey, than it is of deep misgivings about the ongoing role 70,000 American troops would have played in the region.

Turkish military calculations about the troops’ strength needed to combat a dilapidated Iraqi army that even the Turks knew they could defeat didn't square with the magnitude of troop deployments and technological capabilities the U.S. had proposed to base in southern Turkey. Translation: The Turks believed Washington had already set its sights on Tehran, and possibly Damascus, for post-Iraq military operations and was casing the battlefield for those theaters.

Turkey remains the political model for the Islamic world to emulate. Its economic ruin is not an option Washington can pursue to cow Ankara down. The Bush administration needs to hold Ankara's hand while its new government learns the ropes and decides who its friends are. That is what real allies do in times of war, and the U.S. must shoulder this responsibility.

This Friday report in The Scotsman seems to be getting limited play in the U.S., with the exception of "right-wing" media like the New York Post and Fox News. It has been circulating in Commonwealth sources. Hope the Brits can get their hands on these bad guys.

Captured Iraqi soldiers have told British interrogators that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein’s forces against allied troops near Basra. At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden’s network are in the town of Az Zubayr, where they are co-ordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war.

A senior British military source inside Iraq said last night: "The information we have received from PoWs today is that an al-Qaeda cell may be operating in Az Zubayr. There are possibly around a dozen of them and that is obviously a matter of concern to us."

US News & World Report has a new dispatch from the carrier USS Constellation, detailing how the air war in Iraq is evolving to emphasize close air support.

Close air support strikes this week covered the Iraqi map, including surface-to-surface missile and antiartillery sites in Al Amarah; military vehicles and barracks in Najaf; Republican Guard AAA sites and fielded forces in Al Kut; and armored personnel carriers near Karbala.

Still, the Constellation's air wing is "gradually migrating away from" long-identified fixed targets, says Costello, "to supporting the troops" in battles now raging across Iraq. Pilots flying this war's brand of close air support learned the lessons of Afghanistan: "Afghanistan was the first time we dropped through the clouds," says Fox. Before the Taliban takeout and precision-guided weaponry, soldiers on the ground typically talked pilots to a target, in back-and-forth negotiations using line-of-sight landmarks like trees, roads, and rivers. "He'd get a warm fuzzy from knowing he'd guided us directly to the target," says Marine Corps Capt. and Hornet pilot Benedict Burke, 28, from Yardley, Pa., of a ground soldier's spoken directions in the old CAS model: "But with GPS [global positioning systems], close air support is amazing."

Now, more often than not, the forward air controller simply syncs GPS coordinates up to pilots flying thousands of feet above: "We have good intelligence, and ground troops have good technology," says Hornet pilot Lt. Mike Hall, a 27-year-old from Milpitas, Calif., of the mission he flew last week near Karbala, in which ground troops' zapped coordinates helped him take out several tanks of the Republican Guard's Medina Division. Commanders hope the new, technology-dependent strategy will continue to keep pilots safer, as the war moves into more densely populated areas. "The majority of air losses in war are from small arms," says Fox. "So now we don't spend a lot of time rooting around down low, because that's where you get shot."

Media hand-wringing about Iraq has not had the intended effect, according to a new poll. The American people have been watching this conflict closely, including the embedded correspondents' reports that show the courage and skill of our military relatively unfiltered. Determination is high.

As the war in Iraq enters its second week, President George W. Bush’s approval rating rose to 68 percent—a 15-percent increase from two weeks ago, according to the latest Newsweek poll.

The President polled well for his handling of the Iraqi conflict, and respondents also gave him higher marks than in previous weeks for his efforts to improve the economy. Fifty-three percent of those polled say they approve of the way Bush is handling the economy—the highest number since May 2001. An even greater number support his efforts to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Seventy percent of those polled approve of the way Bush his actions in Iraq, Bush’s best ranking since Newsweek began polling Americans on the issue last September. It’s also a 17 percent jump from the percentage who approved of Bush’s “policies to deal with the threat posed by Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein” in late January, when respondents were last asked the question.

Despite concerns voiced this week by some analysts that the war might take longer than was initially expected, nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of those polled say they believe that the Bush Administration has a “well-thought-out plan” for using military force against Iraq—up sharply from 49 percent in late September. And nearly half of Americans polled (49 percent) say they would support continuing U.S. military action in Iraq for more than a year, if that were how long it took to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam.

The civilian deaths from yesterday's explosion in a Baghdad marketplace are reverberating through the Western and Arab media. It may very well turn out to be one of ours - it will happen more often than we like during such a military campaign.

But it may be more than coincidental that this explosion happened (a) to kill a large number of civilians, (b) in a public place where civilians were known to congregate, (c) at a time when the crowd was dense, (d) just a few days following another marketplace explosion, and (e) in a Shiite neighborhood - the very segment of the Iraqi population to which we want to appeal. Since the aftereffects are all bad for our side, and our military doesn't target innocents anyway, we know it wasn't deliberate. We also know the Iraqi authorities will kill their own population without hesitation. Reporters say they were urged quickly by the Iraqi government to speed to the scene, as opposed to being escorted to other areas at other times.

So the order of probability would seem to be: (1) a bomb planted by Saddam's security apparatus, (2) a misfired Iraqi anti-aircraft missile, or (3) an errant U.S. munition.

A fresh report from the AP correspondent on board the USS Kitty Hawk has been published. Sounds like the pilots are focused on the Baghdad area today.

U.S. warplanes launching from the Gulf are pounding Republican Guard positions south of Baghdad to soften defenses around the Iraqi capital in preparation for a U.S.-led ground assault, senior Navy officers said. Navy strike planes took off Saturday from the USS Kitty Hawk for the latest bombing missions to support Army and Marine forces consolidating south of Baghdad. "These are all close air support missions in order to prep the battlefield for the advance of our ground troops," Costello said.

Kitty Hawk-based planes dropped 46 bombs on missions into the early hours of Saturday, including six 2,000-pound target penetrator, or "bunker buster" satellite-guided bombs, eight JSOW satellite-guided bombs, 26 500-pound laser-guided bombs and six 500-pound unguided bombs. Kitty Hawk-based planes hit a Baath Party headquarters, surface-to-surface missile canisters, a military compound, other buildings, tanks and an early warning radar site, officials said. All the targets were between Karbala and Baghdad.

Public nuisance Senator Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) is trying to tap-dance away from his callow cheap shots at GWB. Even Hillary Clinton won't stand on the same side of the field with this guy. Pathetic.

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle says his criticism of President Bush's war policies toward Iraq 48 hours before U.S. troops went into combat was "ill-timed," but he did not retract them. "I don't think the timing of those comments was necessarily the best; I think they could have been better timed," Mr. Daschle said Thursday. "I had no idea when I said them what the timing of the military operation would be." Mr. Daschle has been hit by nearly two weeks of criticism in a blizzard of newspaper editorials and radio and TV talk shows ever since he said that Mr. Bush had put the lives of U.S. troops in danger because, in the South Dakota senator's words, the president had "failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war."

In sharp contrast to his bitter remarks nearly two weeks ago, Mr. Daschle is now praising Mr. Bush's handling of the war and repeatedly praising U.S. troops for their skill and bravery. "The president is doing extremely well in implementing the war plan. The effort overall has been extremely successful," said Mr. Daschle, who earlier this year announced he would not seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. Mr. Daschle's sudden turnaround followed a firestorm back home, where many South Dakotans reacted with anger and outrage after hearing his comments.

Much of Knight-Ridder's war coverage has been downbeat, but one new article on Saddam's deception tactics is still worth pondering. What the article doesn't address is how Centcom is countering Saddam's tactics, so the picture they paint remains incomplete. Our units are adaptable and flexible; we learn as we go. But it really is a cat-and-mouse game on the battlefield.

So far, Saddam has managed to preserve many of his best forces by moving, dispersing and sheltering them - and, some U.S. officials say, by using decoys to deplete American stocks of precision munitions. U.S. assessments of bomb damage and of the exact locations of enemy units can best be described as "conflicted."

Iraq's strategy and tactics have been drawn directly from an old Soviet doctrine called "maskirovka" - a mix of measures designed to mislead the enemy about everything from the disposition of forces and their combat readiness to the commander's plans. That's not surprising: The Soviet Union was Iraq's military mentor for many years. According to the 1978 Soviet Military Encyclopedia: "Strategic maskirovka is carried out at national and theater levels to mislead the enemy as to political and military capabilities, intentions and timing of actions."

An AFP report profiles a tank-hunting mission over Iraq by F/A-18 pilots from the USS Kitty Hawk. Advice of the day: "Don't get your asses shot off."

As pilots gather for a bombing mission over Iraq the talk is technical -- of fuel, wind speed and radio frequencies. Even what could go wrong is dealt with clinically. "There are some threats out there," Lieutenant Anthony Smith, 28, tells a small group of navy pilots based aboard this aircraft carrier in the Gulf. On a wall to his left a large calendar made from yellow fabric speaks of family far away. It is plastered with pictures of women, children, and green shamrocks, one of them bearing Smith's nickname, Salsa. Lieutenant Commander Vic Bindi, who is quick with the jokes and the straight talk, has some parting words of advice: "Don't get your asses shot off."

Smith and his partner, Lieutenant David Rasmussen, 31, will make a round trip journey nearly all the way to Baghdad in search of Iraqi tanks that must be destroyed. The odd hours of war don't seem to show on Smith as he straps on his gear. It is early Friday afternoon but Smith has been awake less than three hours. He was catching up on sleep before this, his first daytime mission since the war began more than a week ago. "I got up a little later than what I should've," said Smith, of Strike Fighter Squadron 192, which calls itself the World Famous Golden Dragons.

Action by USS Kitty Hawk pilots and others was mentioned in an new AP dispatch from Iraq.

Air attacks focused on the Republican Guard's Medina division. F/A-18s from the USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf attacked a fuel depot and another site with missile canisters belonging to the Medina division, said Capt. Dick Corpus, chief of staff of the Kitty Hawk battle group.

Royal Air Force pilots also hit Republican Guard positions 60 miles southeast of Baghdad. "There was fantastic visibility and I could even see the camels on the ground as well as a number of bomb craters around the encampment," Flight Lt. Scott Morley, a Harrier pilot, told a reporter for Britain's Sunday Express. "I got two good hits on Medina division artillery pieces."

Anna Badkhen outlines the security apparatus that Saddam uses to control Iraqis, but also the existence of an underground resistance movement that will respond to the Coalition effort as long as we stay the course - and their worries that we will not. After our many years of weakness, ambivalence and timidity, who can blame them? But this president seems different.

"We have lost confidence in American help," he said. "Iraqis know that Saddam is finished, but they still have doubts." His words reflect the sentiment of the Iraqi majority, according to several members of the underground resistance movement operating in government- controlled Iraq. "People realize that the war may take a long time," said one dissident journalist, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. "They would like to resist, but they are afraid that there won't be anyone on the other side to protect and support them, and that between the time they pledge allegiance to the coalition and the time the regime falls, they may be persecuted.

An elaborate underground network... operates inside most villages and towns on Hussein- controlled territory, exchanging leaflets and using codes to message each other. With Iraqi state television their only source of information, it is hard for people in Iraq to judge when the time is ripe for a revolt.

"People inside are absolutely disconnected from the world," he said. "People hear there is a war, but they don't know where. They see propaganda of Saddam, who says his forces are victorious, and they don't know what is happening. But as soon as they see American tanks with their own eyes, things will start happening very rapidly. For 34 years we've been seeing Saddam's face on TV. That's enough. If the Americans keep going, things will start to collapse."

William Safire has some pointed advice for handling Saddam's strategy to survive through delay and PR.

How should the allies counter Saddam's strategy of using killers in civilian clothes to enforce resistance, and his tactic of horrifying television viewers in the US by inviting and inflicting civilian deaths? How do the allies overcome the terrorised Iraqi population's fear of an outcome in which Saddam again snatches survival and revival from the jaws of defeat? The answer is to adopt the proposition set forth by Roosevelt and Churchill in World War II: declaring irrevocably that the only acceptable end to hostilities is unconditional surrender.

Change the leaflets and broadcasts. No talks about terms; no amnesties for paramilitary killers; no deals on exile for torturers. Surrender, plain and simple.

This is better news from Iraq today than the media's usual hand-wringing. I think we can expect more like this. Thanks to UPI for the report.

Iraqi armor and infantry were pummeled with air strikes and artillery fire yesterday after falling for a trap that lured the Iraqis into vacated U.S. positions in the central part of the country. The armored unit, including Soviet-made tanks, were approaching vacated positions across the open desert when two Navy F-14 aircraft swooped down from a bright, clear sky - the first after three days of fierce sandstorms - and released laser-guided missiles and bombs. Cobra helicopter gunships then buzzed in lower, firing Gatling guns and rockets. Plumes of smoke could be seen in the distance from the burning hulks.

"It was a feint and they fell for it," Gunnery Sgt. Ron Jenks of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, told United Press International. "We really lit them up," added Capt. Shawn Basco, an F-18 pilot acting as a forward air controller for the company.

Stars and Stripes has profiled the parachute riggers for Carrier Air Wing 5 on the USS Kitty Hawk. They're essential for the safety of our pilots.

Whether they're fixing a holster or scrambling for a radio, parachute riggers can be a pilot's best friend. Petty Officer 3rd Class Robert Humphrey passes a bracket for night-vision goggles to one pilot while adjusting the pistol holster for another. "Have a good flight, sir!" Humphrey calls out as the pilots head toward their F/A-18 Hornets bound for Iraq.

The squadron parachute-rigger shop is the last stop for the air crew members before they walk to the flight deck. Humphrey and his crewmates live by the parachute riggers' motto, "the last to let you down." PRs, as they're called, don't just install parachutes in ejection seats. They make sure air crew members properly don survival gear that isn't expired, broken or damaged. "We're pretty much the final quality assurance before the flight," said Humphrey, 20.

PRs for the nine are busier than ever. Pilots fly as many as 130 sorties a day, some of which drop ordnance to support ground troops in Iraq.

President George W. Bush spoke to veterans at the White House today.

In the last week, we have seen the brutal and cruel nature of a dying regime. In areas still under its control, the regime continues its rule by terror. Prisoners of war have been brutalized and executed. Iraqis who refuse to fight for the regime are being murdered. Some in the Iraqi military have pretended to surrender and then opened fire on coalition forces that were willing to show them mercy.

Given the nature of this regime, we expect such war crimes, but we will not excuse them. War criminals will be hunted relentlessly and judged severely.

Another example of how wide-ranging and multi-threaded the Iraqi threat is. Glad the Czechs are more diligent than other Europeans who are not cooperating.

Iraqi agents plotted an attack on the Prague headquarters of U.S.-run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to stop its Arabic-language broadcasts to Iraq, a top Czech intelligence officer said on Wednesday. Jiri Ruzek, director of the Czech Secret Service, said Iraq had ordered its intelligence agents to seek ways of halting the broadcasts, which were launched several years ago.

It was the first time a top Czech official had publicly confirmed long-standing rumours that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, financed by the U.S. Congress, might be the target of an attack. Czech police and the army have tightened security in and around the radio station's offices, located at the top of Wenceslas square in the historic centre of Prague. Ruzek said Iraqi intelligence activity in the Czech capital was the reason for the expulsion of five Iraqi diplomats in the past week, leaving only one official at the Iraqi embassy.

DEBKA comments on the "sudden appearance" of the 101st Airborne not far from Baghdad. This is the division that suffered a grenade attack from one of its own soldiers in Camp Pennsylvania. Glad to see they've made it to the battlefield. Here's hoping they raise a lot of hell, and that we have more surprises coming.

The most significant development of Day Seven of the war was the sudden appearance of the US 101st Airborne Division west of Karbala, at the forefront of coalition lines on the road to Baghdad. This elite unit, which commands a fleet of 300 helicopters gunships with enormous firepower, departed Kuwait secretly on March 21, moved quietly along the Iraqi-Saudi frontier with hardly any resistance and turned up Wednesday west of Karbala. Fighting under its motto “Rendezvous with Destiny”, the 101st has been given the task of opening and securing the western Baghdad battlefront.

Equal opportunity is coming to the battlefield, bigtime.

Female pilots of attack and supply helicopters are as determined as any to go into battle in Iraq, even as reports come back of choppers downed by accidents and hostile fire. "I think resolve usually tends to strengthen in the face of adversity," said Lt. Hartleigh Caine, an Apache Longbow attack helicopter pilot and member of the high-tech 4th Infantry Division. "I don't think about what we're going to do in a different light because I'm a woman. I don't see myself as any different from my compatriots."

"I don't think there's a single person in my company that doesn't want to be over there and bring this thing to a close," she said.

Planes from the USS Kitty Hawk and others were very, very active in Iraq today, making up for lost time during the recent sandstorm.

American-led forces bombed Iraqi targets and battled troops across Saddam Hussein's slowly shrinking domain Thursday, battering the regime's communications and command facilities in Baghdad.

In the war zone, sandstorms abated and the Americans and British reported flying 1,500 missions during the day as they exploited their unchecked air superiority. British forces reported destroying 14 Iraqi tanks near Basra - their largest such take since World War II. Warplanes bombed positions in northern Iraq near Kurdish-held areas and hit Republican Guard forces menacing American ground forces 50 miles south of Baghdad. Thunderous explosions rocked the capital after nightfall in one of the strongest blasts in days, filling the sky with flames and thick smoke after one of Saddam's presidential palaces was hit.

Combat aircraft dropped bombs "just about as fast as we can load them," said Capt. Thomas A. Parker, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf.

A pattern is emerging: the world media has an obvious case of Attention Deficit Disorder.

Media war obsession Thursday 3/27: War is sloooow, may last for months. How could Pentagon be so mistaken? Quagmire!
Media war obsession Wednesday 3/26: Civilians getting killed in war! Why is U.S. military so careless and callous?
Media war obsession Tuesday 3/25: Sandstorms make everything hopeless.
Media war obsession Monday 3/24: Omigaw, they're shooting back! Obviously not anticipated by wishful-thinking Pentagon.
Media war obsession Sat-Sun 3/24-25: POWs, dead and alive. All is lost; sensitive Americans can't stand it.
Media war obsession Wed-Fri 3/19-21: (a) Shock and Awe - it's coming to Iraqi naifs. (b) Shock and Awe - where is it? (c) Shock and Awe - uh, was that it? we're not quite sure...

The Financial Times (UK) passes on a report that, if true, illustrates how wide-ranging our campaign in Iraq truly is, and how complex is the inter-twining between the various factions. Don't think I trust the Iranians to issue a factual report, but something is going on.

US forces attacked the main Iranian armed opposition group based in Iraq on Monday and destroyed two of its military bases, a senior Iranian official said yesterday. The People's Mujahideen Organisation (MKO), based in Iraq since the mid-1980s and financed and equipped by Saddam Hussein, is listed a terrorist group by the US State Department. The group seeks to overthrow Iran's clerical establishment and replace it by a "democratic republic". It has waged operations against Iranian civilians and assassinated Iranian officials since the 1980s. According to the State Department it also killed US military personnel and civilians working on defence projects in Tehran during 1970s. It also helped Baghdad to suppress the failed Shia uprising in 1991.

Sky News outlines how Iraq is essentially infested with military and security personnel at every level. One of our serious challenges is that the whole country is riddled with soldiers and armed thugs of all kinds. It's all been required to keep Saddam in power, mainly against potential internal threats, but it's also a problem for the Coalition - they're everywhere.

Saddam has cocooned himself in a complex military structure arranged like the layers of an onion to protect himself against internal and external enemies. They watch over him, they watch out for aggression from outside - and they keep a sharp watch on each other to see if any one layer will turn against the leader in a coup.

Terrific detailed report from AP describing combat operations by USS Kitty Hawk F/A-18 and F-14 pilots above the battlefield.

About 60 miles out from the Kitty Hawk, the two pilots rendezvoused with a Viking and began a delicate dance to lock their Hornets' extendable fuel probes into a "basket'' just 1 1/2 feet across and trailing from the refueling plane's wing. In 10 minutes, both were refueled for their race north. Minutes later, they rendezvoused with an F-14 Tomcat from the Kitty Hawk. Although older than Hornets, the twin-seat Tomcats have better reconnaissance and communications gear, and can take orders from the ground, watch for threats and direct Hornets to their targets.

Flying at 25,000 feet over Iraq, Pugsley saw flashes on the ground; perhaps U.S. troops were in action. Over their radios, they could hear dozens of U.S. pilots checking in with controllers as they awaited target assignments. In the first few days, Dawson and Pugsley had so long that they ran low on fuel before being given targets and had to return to the Kitty Hawk.

This time, there would be no waiting.

Internecine conflict has broken out within the Democratic Party over their leadership's relentless opposition to the war and the President. At least a few Dem thought-leaders have realized the political bankruptcy inherent in de facto support for a murderous dictator, especially while our troops are fighting and dying. Maybe a ray of light, but it's hard to be optimistic. Still, a more credible opposition would keep Republicans honest.

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile says she backs President Bush's war to overthrow Saddam Hussein and wants her party's leaders to project a stronger message that they support what U.S. troops are doing in Iraq. Miss Brazile, who managed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, said she is not happy with the way Democratic congressional leaders have handled the party's message on the war. She says top Democrats have tilted too much of their message to curry favor with anti-war activists, ignoring swing voters and independents, and have failed to give their rank and file a well-thought-out position on how to deal with the national security threats posed by Saddam's regime.

Revealed as bogus: Russian story racing around the Internet that Vice President Richard Cheney's daughter was trying to be a human shield in Baghdad. That this hokum needed to be debunked at all is symptomatic of widespread gullibility in our time.

"Neither daughter even has plans to travel to that region, let alone Iraq," a Cheney spokesman told United Press International. Echo of Russia Radio Saturday cited unofficial sources when reporting Mr. Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth, had stopped in Amman, Jordan, en route to "war-torn Baghdad."

The story fomented for 48 hours, and by yesterday morning, rumors had Mr. Cheney bound for Jordan to dissuade both his daughters from shield duty.

The Sun (UK) has an article on the presence of special ops forces inside Baghdad.

Two hundred SAS, Delta Force and CIA paramilitaries were last night behind enemy lines in Baghdad - and about to slit the throat of Saddam's regime. Battle commanders have ruled out a full advance into the capital to avoid bloody street-fighting and heavy civilian casualties. Instead the Special Forces teams - also including SAS squads from Australia - will become the enemy within. They have been working undercover for weeks both in and around the capital, using local defectors as their guides. Their plan is to meticulously take out Saddam’s Special Republican Guard, the Special Security Organisation - the thugs of the secret police - and the ruling Ba'ath Party executive.

Two interesting stories today about the media coverage of the war. The Sun (UK) reports that the BBC was slammed from inside for bias. And we in the U.S. learn a new verb: "gobsmack."

THE BBC was last night sensationally condemned for "one-sided" war coverage - by its own front line defence correspondent. Paul Adams attacks the Beeb for misreporting the Allied advance in a blistering memo leaked to The Sun. And he warned the BBC's credibility is at risk for suggesting British troops are paying a "high price for small victories". On Monday, he wrote from US Central Command in Qatar: "I was gobsmacked to hear, in a set of headlines today, that the coalition was suffering 'significant casualties'. “This is simply NOT TRUE. Nor is it true to say - as the same intro stated - that coalition forces are fighting 'guerrillas'. "It may be guerrilla warfare, but they are not guerrillas."

Nielsen ratings show Fox News Channels rules.

Fox News Channel has outdrawn CNN in the ratings through the first five days of the war, a further proof of Fox's audience appeal and a blow to CNN, which was hoping to revitalize the reputation it built during the first Gulf War. Through Monday, Fox News Channel has averaged 4 million viewers each day to CNN's 3.57 million. Fox's audience was bigger when the war began March 19, and every day through Monday, according to Nielsen Media Research. While Fox has been the top-rated cable news channel for more than a year, industry experts wondered whether that lead would hold during a big breaking news story. CNN overtook Fox, for example, on Feb. 1 when the space shuttle disintegrated.

Despite CNN's overwhelming advantage in reporting manpower, more Americans — at least so far — want to watch the war unfold on Fox.

AP reports that missions from the USS Kitty Hawk were suspended Wednesday due to weather conditions.

A towering sandstorm over the Persian Gulf interrupted bombing missions Wednesday from at least one U.S. aircraft carrier and grounded coalition helicopters in southern Iraq. Navy officials said only two F/A-18 Hornet fighters aboard the USS Kitty Hawk were able to launch before a swirling cloud of dust blowing in from the northwest enveloped the ship just after midday. Visibility was reduced to less than 100 yards. Dozens more launches were put on hold until later Wednesday, when the flight plan would be reviewed. At least two sorties were canceled outright.

UPDATE: AP reported later today: "A sandstorm that halted bombing missions from one U-S aircraft carrier cleared up, and flight operations aboard the USS Kitty Hawk resumed after a four-and-a-half-hour delay."

Peggy Noonan is eloquent as always today. The media, with their hive mentality, are indeed getting "bogged down and fogged down" but GWB, our military, and the American people will not stop short of victory.

So far so good. The war has begun, and the world hasn't ended (alarmists, pessimists and prophets on left and right please note). Saddam Hussein may be hurt or dead. And so, on to Baghdad.

An old song from the American civil rights is on my mind and seems on point. It's about how far the movement had come and would go as long as all involved remained focused, in spite of setbacks, on the new day that was coming. "Keep your eyes on the prize, oh Lord, oh Lord," went the refrain. That's what the coming week is about. As we become, inevitably, bogged down and fogged down by the dailyness and messiness of war, we should keep our eyes on the prize. One senses it is going to be bigger than we think.

We are about to startle and reorder the world. We are going to win this thing, and in the winning of it we are going to reinspire civilized people across the globe. We're going to give the world a lift.

Convicted child rapist and fugitive Roman Polanski says he is "deeply touched" by his Academy Award. He had to send his thanks from Paris, where pedophiles are apparently welcome. Speaking from behind bars in San Quentin would be more appropriate, but the inmates there probably would not be as forgiving as the sensitive Hollywood elite.

Franco-Polish film director Roman Polanski said on Tuesday he was deeply touched by winning an Oscar for best director for his Holocaust drama "The Pianist" because the film drew on his personal experiences.

Polanski, who fled the United States for France in 1978 as he was about to be sentenced to prison for having sex with a 13-year-old girl, faces arrest if he sets foot in the United States and could not attend the Oscar ceremony on Sunday night. His statement did not mention his legal troubles or raise the prospect of working in Hollywood once again.

OpinionJournal's daily Best of the Web blog has an interesting "dissection" of the audience response to the Academy Awards nonsense of poseur Michael Moore.

While Moore's tirade isn't worth dissection, the crowd's reaction is. The first section, about the 2000 election, received loud applause. The section on duct tape and orange alert received a mix of cheering and jeering and by the time he finished with his references to the Vatican and the Dixie Chicks, he was drowned in a chorus of boos.

During most of this the camera showed not Moore, but the audience. In a move that must have tied Gil Cates and ICM in negotiations for a week, the producers went out of their way to show America that the stars weren't clapping. Harrison Ford sat with his arms folded, Calista Flockhart angrily pursed her lips, and Adrian Brody looked on condescendingly. For the most part, those seated on the orchestra level sat on their hands.

So who was booing Michael Moore? The people in the balconies. At the Oscars, the orchestra level is reserved for the glitterati and the upper tiers for the riff-raff. So only "normal" people were booing Moore. Which begs the question, why didn't the stars boo him? Why simply sit there, the equivalent of voting "present" on a resolution in Congress? Clearly, the answer is that they wanted to cheer. Just not as much as they want that seventh house in Maui.

Military pilots from the USS Kitty Hawk and elsewhere made adjustments today to changing weather conditions in Iraq.

Pilots bombing Iraqi positions just south of Baghdad switched to satellite-guided weapons Tuesday because of a sandstorm and other severe weather in the Persian Gulf. Thunderstorms piled up towers of clouds rising to 30,000 feet where carrier-based F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats were refueling over the Gulf, and pilots said they saw a massive dust cloud farther north. The weather, which can reduce pilots' visibility and stop them from pinpointing targets with laser-guided bombs, led commanders to order planes to be loaded with satellite-guided weapons instead.

Stars and Stripes reports that the catapult and arresting gear crew is working long hours.

Petty Officer 2nd Class John McFadden doesn’t even bother trying to explain his job to people back home. As a deck edge operator, he pushes a button that catapults multimillion-dollar aircraft off the flight deck. He says that while it's a cool gig, he didn't realize what he was getting into: 18-hour days, seven days a week. "I just try to grab a catnap here and there," he said, looking a bit tired after several hours of launching planes headed for Iraq to support ground troops in Basra. Throughout Friday night and until 4 a.m. Saturday, about 100 planes, loaded with GPS and laser-guided ordnance, thundered off the flight deck.

Fox News Channel showed a Sky News video report yesterday about how pilots and rescue crew from the USS Kitty Hawk prepare for danger. Some of us were thrilled to see a familiar face. Our thoughts and prayers are with him each day.

All air crews undergo intensive training learning how to evade capture and survive until help arrives.

Menu page - click on "Military Training Against Enemy Capture"
Click here for high speed version.
Click here for 56K version.

A more specific report that Saddam was seriously injured in the bunker attack last week was apparently published by The Sun (UK). The story has been summarized in some detail by WorldNetDaily, and cited by the BBC and Rush Limbaugh. However, I cannot find it on The Sun's own web site. Perhaps it's been withdrawn, or maybe I can't search tonite. It is intriguing and would explain some of the strange propaganda from Baghdad, but we won't know for sure until after the liberation.

In need of a surgeon to save his life, Saddam Hussein's aides have sought help from Moscow, according to the British daily The Sun. The paper cited a senior UK government official who said British intelligence intercepted a message Saturday suggesting that Saddam is still alive in a secret hideaway in Baghdad but requires medical intervention the Iraqis cannot provide.

British intelligence chiefs believe the Iraqi leader suffered abdominal injuries when cruise missiles struck a bunker Thursday where he was reported to be meeting with his inner circle. Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusay, also are believed to have been injured, or possibly killed, in the attack. The sources say Saddam was pulled from the rubble and whisked away in an ambulance, The Sun said. They believe he underwent a major operation and a blood transfusion, and at one point thought he might be dead.

The senior British official said Saddam's aides "requested urgent medical assistance for a senior government official who was injured." "Saddam's name was not mentioned during the conversation – but there is little doubt it was him they were talking about," the official said. "They said he was not critically injured but demanded urgent treatment because he had lost blood and could get worse. This regime wouldn't go to that trouble for anybody else – including members of his family."

Some intelligence sources believe a video of Saddam after the missile attack was pre-recorded. Yesterday, Iraqi state television showed Saddam chairing meetings with top officials, but American officials said there was no way to tell whether the footage was current or taped before the war began. In the call for help, picked up by British intelligence in Cheltenham, the victim was described as having suffered third-degree burns, a crushed abdomen and trauma, which are typical of a bomb attack.

Poseur Michael Moore was a splendid example at the Academy Awards of what my father-in-law recently referred to as a "disloyal fool." Whenever I see, hear or read of Moore, I'm reminded of a literary spear thrust from some years ago. Author Mary McCarthy once called closet Communist Lillian Hellman "dishonest." She was then asked "what is dishonest about her?" McCarthy answered: "Everything...every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.' " Describes Moore to a tee.

"We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president," Moore said. "We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts." Applause gave way to some boos, as the orchestra began playing to cue the filmmaker to leave the stage. "We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush. Shame on you," Moore shouted.

The Academy further showed its perverse nature by awarding the Best Director award to Roman Polanski, convicted child rapist and fugitive, as I predicted several weeks ago. Words fail me.

Reporter Rohan Sullivan has posted a new AP story about the defensive systems of the USS Kitty Hawk.

If it's hostile - an incoming missile, an enemy warship, a suspicious boat - the Kitty Hawk can activate its defense system of missiles, automatic cannon and machine guns within seconds.... The ship's radar, electronic sensors and human eyes are constantly on watch for threats among the oil tankers, fishing boats and warships crowding the Gulf. "We are locked and loaded and ready to go," said Cmdr. Bob Hahn, head of the Command Directions Center, which handles the Kitty Hawk's tactical defense. The carrier's on-board defenses include Sea Sparrow and Rolling Airframe missiles, radar-directed Gatling guns and .50-caliber and M-60 machine guns.

But the most lethal force is the air wing - about 75 warplanes including F/A-18 Hornet and F-14 Tomcat fighters armed with a variety of missiles and several Seahawk helicopters that can carry MK-46 anti-submarine torpedoes and Hellfire missiles. "We can get something up in a matter of seconds" if a threat is detected, Hahn said.

I think the USMC, the entire Coalition force, and the American people evolved today, from merely resolute to resolute AND pissed off. Lt. Jeffrey Zaun, a former POW during the Gulf War, is speaking on Fox News right now. He says we will get our prisoners back "when we break Baghdad." Damn right.

An Iraqi military unit Sunday faked a surrender to a U.S. Marine unit but then opened fire as they approached near Nasiriyah, just one fight in a day of pitched battles marked by what military officials called "ruses" on the part of Iraqi forces, according to Central Command military officials. "As our forces moved to receive this surrender in an honorable way, they were attacked and sustained casualties," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy operations officer at Central Command, at a briefing Sunday in Qatar. Fewer than 10 Marines are reported to have died in the battle. An unspecified number of others were wounded. Embedded news crews say as many as 50 Marines were wounded. The Marines destroyed eight tanks, some anti-aircraft batteries along with "a number of infantry" said Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, deputy commander of coalition forces in Iraq. "The Marines were successful, they defeated the enemy," Abizaid said.

Iraqi television showed Sunday videotape of a number of U.S. soldiers, including a woman, captured in south central Iraq, as well as the bodies of eight others they claimed were American. The Iraqi videotape showed bodies of the soldiers, some mutilated and others riddled with bullets on the floor in an undisclosed location. Blood-stained identification papers were being placed on their chests while an Iraqi was covering one of the half-naked bodies with a U.S. uniform.

Saturday was karaoke night for the hard working crew onboard the USS Kitty Hawk, according to Stars and Stripes.

As bombs and missiles crowded one mess deck, sailors belting out tunes crowded another. War faces became animated and chiefs chilled out with junior sailors during karaoke night Saturday on the USS Kitty Hawk. The music ranged from Frank Sinatra to Vanilla Ice, with some George Strait thrown in by some country boys.

Stars and Stripes has a new report dated Sunday from the USS Kitty Hawk.

Planes screamed off the flight deck into the early morning hours Saturday to provide close air support for ground troops in southern Iraq, as a barrage of explosives began to rain down on Baghdad.

Pilots returning to the aircraft carrier described clouds lighting up around them over Basra, southern Iraq’s largest city. “You could see the horizon was red from at least 100 miles away,” said Lt. Marcus Dodd, an EA6-B Prowler pilot...

The flights meant everyone on board was moving more quickly. Air crews were turning planes around for more flights at a much faster pace than normal, said Lt. Dave Spurlock, aviation maintenance officer for the Black Knights Tomcats squadron. The crew usually has four or five hours to get the planes ready. On Friday and Saturday, they were turning them around in an hour.

The OpinionJournal has a solid commentary today about the real story of "blood for oil" - the powerful, long-standing efforts by France and Russia to undermine sanctions and make oil deals with Saddam. Their desire for oil deals, creepily involving my former employer Elf, has helped lead us to where we are now: shedding the blood of American and British heroes to disarm a madman.

Those who think the Iraq war is about oil ought to consider a different possibility--that the war might have been avoided if France and Russia, lured by the promise of Iraqi petroleum deals, had not steadily fed Saddam Hussein's belief that he could outlast the U.S. in the sanctions war.

The drama of recent weeks was a visible coda to the drama of the past 12 years, in which the U.S. and Britain were alone in trying to make Saddam obey the U.N. resolutions and peace terms his regime agreed to. All the while Saddam was encouraged to hold out by countries that made it clear that they would readily support a waiving of sanctions and anything else Saddam wanted in return for oil contracts and other financial benefits.

Sunday's Washington Post has another detailed story about action over Iraq by carrier pilots from the USS Abraham Lincoln. They're responding to changing battlefield situations with skill.

Last-minute changes in targeting were common today, the second day of intense bombing in Iraq. "There are only so many fixed targets that you can hit," said Swift, deputy commander of the Lincoln's air wing, which flew about 66 combat missions today. "Now, you've got emerging targets, targeting that develops quickly and is coming from intelligence information and new satellite images." But this flexibility can also bring challenges.

The Navy tries to pair the aviators this way: seasoned flier, young turk. The experienced pilots bring a certain confidence and history; the green pilots have drive and ambition. "There are 100,000 dudes who would give anything to do what I'm doing... This is the tip of the spear."

Press reports about pro-America rallies this weekend are trickling in, including a video clip on Fox News. A few examples listed below.

Sacramento, CA: They came on Harleys, in camouflaged trucks and SUVs, pushing baby strollers and on bikes. They waved American flags and prayed and sang, creating a sea of red, white and blue on the west steps of the state Capitol. They came to support President Bush and the troops in Iraq. They said they were mothers and veterans and proud Americans. It wasn't a matter of being pro-war, they said, but of supporting one's country and its troops in time of war. "I'm pro doing what's necessary and I definitely support my son," said Becca Cason of Sacramento, holding a large poster with a picture of a uniformed 19-year old Arron Schneider, who is in the Middle East aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.

Thousands of people joined together at an auction warehouse in Auburn, IN to express support for the war but it ended up blocking traffic on Interstate 65 for hours. The rally for America took about three weeks to plan but brought over 20,000 people together with one purpose. Kathy Hawks says, "One of the men overseas felt like when he came back home he would be spat upon because all the news they were getting was of protesters so we said lets send them a message that we want them to come home and we're proud of them."

5,000+ show support for U.S. at USA Stadium in Millington [TN]. Ricky Hunt held a poster with an 8-by-10 photograph of a young Marine and carried a large Marine Corps flag over his shoulder as he stood at the entrance to USA Stadium Saturday for a pro-military rally. "We're really tired of all the protesters. I don't understand them. I think they ought to remember where they got their freedom," Hunt said.

LANSING, Mich. - After days of anti-war demonstrations in Michigan and across the country, hundreds of supporters of the U.S.-led attack against Iraq gathered Saturday in front of the state Capitol. Many at the "Rally for America" carried American flags and signs that said: "God Bless America" and "Support Bush." Patriotic songs were played and the crowd chanted "U.S.-A" several times during the hour-long event.

Pro-military demonstrators crashed an anti-war protest in Reno Saturday, drowning out the peace activists' hymns and speeches with chants of "U.S.A." and "Support Our Troops." About 200 people who gathered at a "Rally for America" near the Truckee River at noon marched several blocks to face off - in some cases face-to-face - with about 150 anti-war protesters at a vigil at the federal courthouse.

The AP's Rohan Sullivan has filed a new story detailing recent activities on the USS Kitty Hawk.

It was the first time Kitty Hawk-based fighters have dropped bombs since the war started, though more than 200 flights have launched from the ship since early Thursday. Until now, scores of carrier-based planes loaded up with bombs and flew over southern Iraq only to return with their weapons. Pilots said buildings and infrastructure earlier identified as targets were suddenly reassigned "no-drop" because U.S. forces had occupied them without resistance. Pilots reported seeing dozens of U.S. planes over southern Iraq at any given time.

Wave after wave of F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcat fighters blasted off the flight deck of the USS Kitty Hawk for hours Saturday, laden with hundreds of laser- and satellite-guided bombs, as the ship resumed close air support of Marines and the Army's V Corps in southern Iraq.

Bill Gertz is reporting in the Washington Times that hopes remains that we will recover an American POW from the 1991 Gulf War. Imagine the joy if we can pull this hero out from Saddam's dungeons.

Defense and intelligence agencies have formed a special unit that will go into Iraq to search for Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, a missing U.S. Navy pilot believed to have been held captive in Iraq since 1991. Creating the special unit comes as U.S. intelligence agencies reported last week that an American pilot believed to be Capt. Speicher was spotted alive in Baghdad earlier this month.

The media have given extensive coverage to "anti-war" protests (most organized by anti-U.S., even Stalinist, activists). But they are also starting to give grudging recognition to the fact that a large, and growing, majority of Americans are pro-war, pro-military, pro-Bush, and pro-freedom for the people of Iraq.

In Chicago, which has been the scene of large antiwar protesters for the past three nights, demonstrators expressing support for Bush and U.S. troops rallied downtown, while opponents of the war rallied about 60 feet away. The two groups were kept separated by police. "I'm here to support the troops. God bless America," said one woman. In this crowd, sign messages included "W: 4 More Years," "I'm So French I Hate Myself" and "Spirit of 76%," a reference to poll numbers showing strong public support for Bush's decision to go to war.

At the U. of Maryland:

...as the protesters invaded a crowded food court, their call failed to draw diners to their feet. A few students booed the guy with the bullhorn; the rest rolled their eyes or kept them lowered toward their books. "I'd rather there be peace," said Brittany Neal, a sophomore who assessed the protest from a distant booth, "but I don't support this." She added that she does, in fact, support the U.S. strikes on Iraq.

In Portland:

At a pro-war rally also held Thursday, nearly 100 people waved American flags and carried placards with messages like "Kill Saddam" and "Support Our Troops -- Not the U.N." Among them was 23-year-old Amanda Gentry, a 23-year-old student at Clackamas Community College, who said her brother-in-law was on the front lines in Iraq. "If we don't take care of Saddam Hussein now, we'll have to take care of him later," she said. "It's just something that has to be done. We need to be supporting the men and women who are down there fighting for us."

One more fresh report about the air ops from the USS Kitty Hawk with a few details.

Attack fighter jets from aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk were called in for the first time to give support to ground troops in Iraq. A spokesperson for the carrier air wing said four F/A-18 Hornet jets targeted artillery pieces in Al Qurnah with seven laser-guided 250-kilogramme bombs. There was no immediate word on the success of the afternoon strikes in support of troops from the First Marine Expeditionary Force in southern Iraq. Since Friday, Kitty Hawk's Hornets and F-14 Tomcats have flown a large number of sorties in support of Marines and Fifth Corps Army soldiers but the Saturday missions were the first time they have been called in to attack targets in direct support of the troops. The carrier's fighters, tankers and other support aircraft were scheduled to fly well over 100 sorties on Saturday, the largest number since military action began early Thursday.

AP has filed a new, brief dispatch indicating that the USS Kitty Hawk pilots are hard at work today.

U.S. combat pilots have been busy in the skies over Iraq. Warplanes from the U.S.S Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier are resuming bombing missions in support of Army and Marine forces near the southern city of Basra. Officers say they flew more than 60 missions overnight, but none of those planes dropped bombs.

The Washington Post has a detailed story today focused on flights over Iraq from the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Gulf. I bet this is very similar to the experience of our favorite folks on the USS Kitty Hawk. Good reading.

Strike jets from this huge carrier dodged showers of antiaircraft missiles and shells in Iraq tonight while hitting targets with precision-guided bombs, pilots returning from missions recalled. "It looked like a string of 50 firecrackers that all went off at the same time," said Lt. Eric Doyle, 29, an F/A-18E Super Hornet pilot from Houston. He saw missiles through his night-vision goggles: "Like mini-space shuttles going up. And the plumes -- the plumes of flame trailing them!"

Stars and Stripes has filed a fresh story focused on Carrier Air Wing 5 on the USS Kitty Hawk.

Planes screamed off the flight deck into the early-morning hours Saturday to provide close air support for ground troops in southern Iraq as a barrage of explosives rained down on Baghdad. "We thought we were going to be part of the initial airstrikes into downtown Baghdad," but other battle group planes got the call instead, said Lt. Cmdr. Mike Brown, Kitty Hawk battle group spokesman.

Another new Stars and Stripes story from the Kitty Hawk features the work of the "mag rats" who handle the armaments.

The past few days have been demanding for the aviation ordnancemen, also known as red shirts or ordies. In addition to the bomb’s sheer weight, about 150 ordnancemen must battle blasts of jet exhaust on the flight deck while moving ordnance, or arming and de-arming missiles. About 250 more red shirts work for the weapons department, assembling the weapons and pushing them through mess decks and other areas to get them to the flight deck.

AFP has a report that includes a story about Prowler operations from the Kitty Hawk over Baghdad.

"Missile in the air!" Lieutenant Silas Bouyer called that warning to his fellow crewmen over Baghdad Friday night when he spotted an Iraqi surface-to-air missile in the distance. Bouyer, 26, along with a pilot and two radar jamming officers, had flown to the Iraqi capital ahead of a massive attack on the city by hundreds of cruise missiles. Aboard an EA-6B Prowler based on this aircraft carrier, they went in to jam Iraqi radars and pave the way for Tomahawks and other US warplanes conducting what a senior navy officer called a "shock and awe" campaign. Once the first Tomahawks struck Baghdad at about 1800 GMT, the Iraqis tried to fight back.

A Reuters story from several carriers in the Gulf includes a good summary of what the Kitty Hawk is doing.

On the USS Kitty Hawk, one of five U.S. carriers in striking distance of Iraq. Rear Admiral Matthew Moffit said his warplanes were meeting little anti-aircraft fire on their bombing runs at military targets in southeastern Iraq. "Where we are flying -- and of course now, we're flying at fairly high altitudes -- the air crews are meeting fairly minimal threat," he told reporters. His aircraft were overflying the Al Faw peninsula en route to inland targets to clear the way for the advance of Army and Marine Corps invasion forces, Moffit said. The missions involved taking out "anything that will stop or eliminate or mitigate threats" to the advance. The Kitty Hawk was scheduled to launch about 100 flights on Friday.

An AP story on the soft Iraqi resistance in southern Iraq includes a snippet about what pilots from the USS Kitty Hawk are seeing.

Lt. Cmdr. Mark Johnson, a pilot returning to the USS Kitty Hawk from a mission over southern Iraq, said it appeared that Iraqi forces were withdrawing in front of advancing U.S. forces. He could see columns of Marines moving but "there was nobody coming south to meet them." Time and again, he said, he was told to ignore targets like missile launch sites because U.S. troops had passed without any opposition.

The Washington Post published an interesting piece today that was quickly deluged under other news: the intellectual origins of "shock and awe" in a 1996 report. Turns out the entire document is available online for those who want to dive deep.

The "Shock and Awe" aerial bombardment of Baghdad launched by U.S. and British forces today is based on concepts first developed in an obscure 1996 Pentagon publication. In "Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance," former military officers Harlan K. Ullman and James Wade sought to formulate a new military strategy that could "so destroy or so confound the will to resist that an adversary will have no alternative except to accept our strategic aims and military objectives." The concept appealed to Donald H. Rumsfeld before he became secretary of defense in 2001.

DEBKA notes the unexpected appearance of Kuwaiti troops in captured Umm Qasr [as seen today on Fox News] and discusses a secret strategy by the Allies to essentially partition Iraq.

Under this pre-arranged partition, Kuwait has been assigned Umm al Qasr and possibly the Faw peninsula, thereby doubling the small emirate’s land mass. Kuwait’s reward for wholeheartedly turning one half of its territory into a key American invasion base is the fulfillment of its national aspiration for a foothold in southern Iraq and command over ingress to and egress from the strategic Shatt al Arb waterway. The symbolic arrival of Kuwait military in the newly-captured town of Umm Qasr would not have been permitted without Washington’s blessing.

This turn of events radically alters the Gulf balance of power. Until Friday, March 21, it was dominated by the rivalry between Baghdad and Tehran. Iran is now confronted with a formidable new adversary: An American-Anglo backed Kuwait with a military grip on the Shatt al Arb. This is a strong signal from Washington to Tehran not to entertain any notions of exploiting the Iraq war to grab control of this strategic waterway or to further its designs on Iraq’s southern oil fields.

MSNBC has a new report on psychological warfare and other unconventional techniques being used in the Iraq campaign. Looks like we can see the effects in Iraqi surrenders and lack of will to respond to the invasion.

Instead of delivering the quick and devastating blow promised by the Pentagon in the days leading up to the actual conflict, the war began with a series of careful escalations, laced with feints and deception, all intended to obviate the need for protracted airstrikes and ground combat.

"I think that the rumor mill, like the overt coverage the military is letting out, is very much being used to put the Iraqi regime on edge," says William Arkin, an NBC News analyst and authority on information warfare.

Beyond the highly visible efforts to shatter the confidence of the Iraqi military and leadership, a more secretive and deliberate effort is underway to marry psyops with action on the ground. These operations, officials said, are carefully planned and calibrated to shock, if not awe, Iraqi forces into realizing their defensive efforts are futile. Neither Pentagon officials nor U.S. military officers would discuss such efforts, and few outside the highest levels of the U.S. and CENTCOM command structure would even know about them. Such joint psyops/special ops mission are run by Special Technical Operations cells, or "STOs." These cells are responsible for coordinating traditional warfare with newer modes of combat - from information warfare to espionage, psychological warfare, sabotage and other special weapons.

Hollywood utopians plan to use their only asset - celebrity - to protest the liberation of Iraq at the Academy Awards on Monday night. I, for one, won't be watching their pathetic efforts, especially while our nation's soldiers are in harm's way. It would make me "uncomfortable."

Actor Will Smith, described as being uncomfortable with the world situation, has pulled out of Sunday's scheduled Oscar ceremony and other stars plan to wear peace sign pins, doves and even duct tape to protest the war in Iraq.

Artists United to Win Without War -- a group of more than 130 celebrities who have campaigned prominently against military action against Iraq -- has produced a special peace sign pin for the event. Artists including Dustin Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Jim Carrey, Ben Affleck, Michael Moore and Kirsten Dunst have agreed to wear it on the night. Others plan to wear a peace dove or a piece of duct tape on their gowns or tuxedos.

The AP's Rohan Sullivan provides a written report that supports the earlier Fox News broadcast story.

The U.S. Navy launched about 320 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Iraq from ships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, senior officers said Friday. "We have just begun the next phase of attacks in Iraq," said Rear Adm. Matthew G. Moffit, commander of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk battle group in the north Persian Gulf. The Kitty Hawk was one of two carriers in the north Persian Gulf to take part in Friday night's assault.

Capt. Patrick Driscoll, commander of air strike force aboard the Kitty Hawk, said two radar-jamming EA-6B Prowlers were launched to support bombers aiming for targets over Baghdad. About one hour later, F/A-18 Hornet and F-14 Tomcat fighters loaded with 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound bombs fitted with laser and global position system guidance systems roared off the Kitty Hawk's flight deck to support ground troops in southern Iraq. Driscoll said the fighters would provide close air support for Marines north and south of the city of Basra and the al-Faw Peninsula and the Army's V Corps in the vicinity of Az Zubayr.

Fox News reported on air that planes from the USS Kitty Hawk have been primarily deployed today for ground support of U.S. and British marines in southern Iraq, around Basra and other towns.

NPR broadcast a report today about weather forecasting at Shaw AFB in my hometown. Pretty interesting - the report says military forecasts are much more accurate than commercial ones, for which we can be grateful.

Leda Hartman reports on the critical weather forecasting for Iraq that's done at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C. Teams of meteorologists at the headquarters of the 28th Operational Weather Squadron say they can predict the weather in Iraq from one hour to five days ahead of time, down to one square mile.

Mansoor Ijaz has published an eloquent article in today's Weekly Standard arguing for "citizenship before civil rights" and changes in attitude among Arab- and Muslim-American leaders. Powerful words - we can only hope that the right people will listen.

The majority of hardworking Arab- and Muslim-Americans want to speak out in the vivid colors of patriotism that define our nation in times of war. But many fear either being labeled as traitors by zealots who know little about Islam or being disowned by their parents for disavowing the antiquated beliefs of elders.

America's Arab and Muslim leaders, regardless of their views on the U.S. decision to disarm Saddam by force, need to make important changes in how they lead the community during times of peace, but especially so in this time of war. Rooting their activism in the principles that define citizenship is a good place to start. There is simply no room in American life for those Arabs and Muslims who believe they belong to some higher Ummah, or global Islamic community without borders.

Whether these leaders are imams in our nation's mosques or teachers in our public schools or activists in special-interest groups, they must publicly voice their support for our men and women serving in the armed forces. Imams, in particular, have this responsibility since they have spewed forth so much of the venom that afflicts our communities.

An AP report on the progress of "Shock and Awe" includes a snippet about the USS Kitty Hawk. They sound... busy. Not clear about what targets they are attacking.

Earlier, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, scores of bombs were readied to fire and stored in racks in the ship's cavernous hanger bay. Ordnance crews worked steadily through the day attaching global positioning system and laser guidance kits to 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound bombs and moving the ordnance from the ship's 22 weapons magazine to holding bays. Dozens of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornet strike planes loaded with bombs roared off the Kitty Hawk's deck before nightfall Friday.

Another new AP photo from the Kitty Hawk has been posted.

CAPTION: Flight deck crew push an F/A-18 Hornet into a parking position on the flight deck aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Gulf, Friday March 21, 2003.

Jim Hoagland analyzes how GWB arrived at his decision to take action in Iraq. His article is more thoughtful than others that have appeared recently, especially one from the The Times (UK) that blames GWB's "black and white" worldview on his mom. Just what is it about the smart set that recoils from distinguishing good from evil?

Throughout the long months of debate and preparation, as U.S. policy seemed to zigzag and U.N.-mounted obstacles to regime change proliferated, one thing was always clear: In the end, Bush would have to make up his mind on the basis of incomplete and conflicting information and divided advice from within his own administration. That seemed to bother him less than it would have most other politicians I have known. "This comes down to this president's character and his instincts," one Iraq hawk who knows the president well told me months ago. "I'm not worried about the outcome."

Stars and Stripes has a new story about pilots on the USS Kitty Hawk.

Lt. j.g. Tom Lunsford returned from his first mission dropping bombs on Iraq to a roomful of sailors Wednesday evening. On the ready room board was a caricature of the newest pilot of the Black Knights' F-14 Tomcat squadron. "They drew a picture of an old man, all salty. Everyone was saying, 'Hey, he's my war hero,' " said Lt. Cmdr. Jerry Morick, 37, who flew with Lunsford as his radar intercept operator.

Ohio News Network has a general story that includes this snippet about the Kitty Hawk's activities.

Military officials say F-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats have run 90 missions from the USS Kitty Hawk carrier over the last day or so. The jets have been carrying 500-pound, 1,000-pound and one-ton bombs.

A new AP photo of the "flyboys" on the Kitty Hawk is on the Web and printed in today's Houston Chronicle.

CAPTION: F-14A Tomcat pilot Lt. Greg Malandrino (left) and fellow flyboy Adam Adams exult on the flight deck of the USS Kitty Hawk yesterday after returning from successful missions.

Robert Novak reports a possible cabal between our "ally" Turkey and the mad mullahs of Iran to divvy up control of Iraqi Kurdistan. Given Turkish fear & loathing of Kurdish autonomy, this seems plausible. It may also explain why the Turks can't seem to quite give the U.S. permission to fight this war from their territory.

On Wednesday last week, a special envoy of the president of Iran traveled to Ankara for talks with Turkish leaders. What business did America's enemy (and ''axis of evil'' member) have with America's ally in NATO? The informed suspicion is that they were dividing up northern Iraq between them in advance of an anticipated U.S. military victory. That runs against American war aims. The day after the Iranian-Turkish meeting, President Bush sent a letter to Ankara that, in reportedly blunt language, told the Turks to keep hands off Iraq.

Christopher Caldwell at The Weekly Standard examines the head-in-the-sand mentality within the ruling class in France, exemplified by a recent dinner conversation.

His obvious assumption was that this little diplomatic perturbation would pass with the occasion that gave rise to it. He has not reckoned in the slightest with the possibility that, in wartime, America--however fond its "feelings" towards France--might deem it dangerous not to punish an ally that has actively worked against its interests. Whether France wants to repair its relationship with the United States now or later remains murky. But it is clear that France has given too little thought to the possibility that America might have other plans.

The Sun (UK) sent a special edition to Paris yesterday. "Cruel but fair."

The Sun hit Paris yesterday to show the world our disgust at the cowardice of President Jacques “The Worm” Chirac for wriggling out of his responsibilities to the West. We took copies of a French edition of our newspaper labelling Chirac as Saddam Hussein’s whore. Describing his actions as those of a “Paris harlot”, The Sun argued he was as big a threat to the civilised world as Iraq’s tyrant. Sadly but predictably, the poor, misled French people backed their spineless president to the hilt.

Les snots in France thoughtfully supplied immediate corroboration of the charge.

France has turned down a United States request that it expel Iraqi diplomats based in Paris because it concerned a question of French sovereignty, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday. "We have been asked to expel Iraqi diplomats in Paris. Such a decision concerns our sovereignty. There is no reason to do so," he told journalists.

Rumsfeld had a good line yesterday at the expense of an unfortunate member of the press corps, who had asked a question that implied the Pentagon wasn't keeping to their war plan.

Well... the first thing I'd say is I don't believe you have the war plan -- a fact which does not make me unhappy.

Sometimes the media seems to be an audio/visual Moebius Strip, turning on itself endlessly. Yesterday their obsession was the un-happening of the promised "Shock and Awe" campaign (thanks to spousal unit for pointing it out). Today The Guardian and others are now commenting on yesterday's overfocus.

Broadcasters had been so prepared for the so-called Shock and Awe beginning to the war - in which thousands of bombs were supposed to be dropped on Baghdad at once - that coverage by the 24-hour news channels on what on-screen graphics called Day 1 had a tone which might be called Shock and Bemusement.
While the coverage of 9/11 - now the benchmark for all rolling news coverage - communicated horror at what had happened, the first day of war reporting was marked by surprise at what did not occur. All day, the same footage of a single explosion beyond the Baghdad skyline - flame rising like a violent sunrise - seemed to play in a loop.

"Let's face it," admitted the mid-afternoon anchor on BBC News 24, as he introduced yet another map showing the one small house targeted in case Saddam Hussein was in it, "no one expected this." Turning hopefully to his pundit of that hour, he asked: "So - shock and awe coming up?"

Turns out commentator Fred Barnes is an Episcopalian like much of our family. He's responded to misguided, utopian comments by the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold III. I'd say Fred speaks for me.

"I'd like to be able to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the United States," [Griswold] said.

The bishop's comment wasn't widely reported, but if you're an Episcopalian, as I am, you probably heard about it and weren't surprised. Sanctimonious left-wing musings by the top bishop are a punishment we're forced to suffer as Episcopalians. The same is true for members of all the mainline Protestant churches, whose national leaders routinely inflict their left-of-center views on the captive audience in the pews.

My reaction to Bishop Griswold is pretty simple. I'd like to be able to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for belonging to a church whose leader says such embarrassing things. I'd like to hear the bishop speak about saving souls through faith in Jesus Christ instead of presenting his political views as if they grow out of Christian teaching. I'd like the bishop to sound more like Billy Graham than Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, more like Fulton Sheen than Martin Sheen.

And for now, I'd like him to pipe down about the war with Iraq. Bishop Griswold has little to say that's not distressing to most of the 2.5 million Episcopalians in America.

The OpinionJournal has a humorous article written in Franglais about the state of relations between the U.S. and France. I like the concluding sentences.

Mais toujours rememberez-vous: Nous Américains ne sommes pas comme cultivés as les Francais. Oui, nous did sauvé your bacon dans WWII, et we seem préparé--avec l'aide des Anglais et Tony Blair--to do so encore. But comme un peuple we Américains still préférons le cheeseburger Boeuf bourguignon, le Coors aux Chablis, et le Hummer au Renault. Et we will never, never comprendrons pourquoi vous awarded la légion d'honneur à Jerry Lewis.

Monsieur Le President Chirac, nous will not allow une petite thing like une guerre to come entre our deux grandes nations. Vive la différence, oui. Mais it is bien for Paris to learn le same message that Saddam is learning maintenant à Baghdad: "Ne messez pas avec le Texas."

Columnist William Safire is in hot pursuit of France, which has dirty hands from doing military business with Iraq for years. Chirac himself denied Safire's first round of charges, so today we get to read Part II, which describes in detail how a French company facilitated the transfer of rocket fuel from China to Iraq. Note the date: 2002.

Let me supply Mr. Chirac with some documentation that the Inspector Clouseau in his foreign ministry cannot find. On Aug. 25, 2002, e-mail went from the director general of CIS Paris to Qilu Chemicals in China regarding a preliminary order: "We are about to have one of our affiliates open a L/C [Letter of Credit] for an initial order of 20,000 kilograms [22 tons] of sealant type HTBP-III. ... The drums should have a label mentioning the nature of the goods, same as your sample: 'modified polybatadiene sealant type III.' It is not necessary that the label shows the name of your company."

John over at BlogsofWar.com is sure doing a heroic job tracking progress of the war. He even earned a mention on MSNBC.com. Way to go, fella - but easy on the pizza. Could be classified as a biowar assault on your heart.

Reuters has a story about the USS Kitty Hawk's pilots and their missions.

Carrier-based warplanes in the Gulf have started clearing the way for U.S.-led ground forces invading southern Iraq from Kuwait, Navy pilots and other officers said on Friday. Roaring off the Kitty Hawk's flight deck, F-14A Tomcat and F/A-18C Hornet strike fighters dropped laser-guided bombs on Thursday to weaken Iraqi positions for the invading forces.

As does AFP.

Aircraft from US Navy carriers had carried out operations against military targets in Iraq, officers told AFP correspondents aboard, but gave no details. "I think we had a couple of guys attack targets," said Commander Gary Shoman, who leads Strike Fighter Squadron 27, the Royal Maces, on board the Kitty Hawk in the Gulf. Six F/A-18 Hornet attack fighters and F-14 Tomcat fighters returned to the USS Kitty Hawk just before sunset. None appeared to have bombs under their wings.

Local story from Indiana about Capt. Scott Wetter, involved in flight operations aboard the Kitty Hawk.

U.S. Navy Capt. Scott Wetter is an avid antique car collector who spends countless hours refurbishing and fine tuning vehicles. He's described by his family as a doting husband, father and grandfather. He is also serving onboard the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, which is positioned in the Middle East and will play a supportive role in the war on terrorism by launching planes and helicopters from its deck. "They showed the Kitty Hawk on CNN and it was right there, in the front, ready to go in," said Scott's mother, Eleanor Vance. "But he's doing what he loves. He wanted this."

SkyNews reports on flight activity aboard the Kitty Hawk.

Dozens of US warplanes are leaving carrier ship USS Kitty Hawk on sorties laden with 500lb laser guided bombs, headed for Iraq's southern no fly zone - and returning without their deadly payload. Sky correspondent James Forlong, who is aboard the Kitty Hawk, has watched a constant stream of aircraft fly out and return from bombing missions over enemy territory.

An AP story that includes a good photo from the Kitty Hawk flight deck describes JDAMs and compares with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Pentagon officials say the Tomahawks probably will be eclipsed by a new favorite bomb made to fit the wish list of the Gulf War's commanders: cheap, plentiful, accurate and impervious to clouds, dust and smoke. The Joint Direct Attack Munition, extensively used in the war in Afghanistan, probably will make up the bulk of the thousands of bombs expected to rain on Iraq once the war begins in earnest.

Shelby, NC is proud of Navy Capt. Pat Driscoll, commander of Air Wing 5 aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.

"Well I don't know of anybody who is more conscientious and has more leadership qualities than he does, and he's of course, my hero," said Avery McMurry, whose son-in-law is in the Persian Gulf.

There was a good new photo today. CAPTION: A member of the flight deck crew signals the pilot of an F-14A Tomcat as it prepares to be launched from the flight deck aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf on Wednesday.

Fidel Castro, the tinhorn despot next door, has to remind everyone that he's still around. There must be a psychiatric term for this kind of evil overlord insecurity. Operation Liberate Cuba soon? Probably has to wait until we clean out other nests of tyrants and their enablers: Iran, Syria, North Korea, France, Foggy Bottom.

The Cuban government has begun what State Department officials yesterday called the most significant repression of its political opposition in seven years. Dozens of Cuban opposition leaders have been arrested in the past few days. The campaign is also targeting senior U.S. diplomats, who are being singled out by name on nightly government television broadcasts and accused of illegal activities.

So sad to see that the USA and UK lost heroes today. Somehow we always hope there will be none, but that hope never quite comes true.

Twelve British and four American soldiers have been killed after a US Marine helicopter crashed in Kuwait, military officials said. The CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter was assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and came down south of Umm Qasr in northern Kuwait at 3am local time.

Conventional wisdom says that all early news from a war is wrong, but this item from Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency ( IRNA) has to stand as the weird item of the day. True? Who knows...but interesting.

Uday, the elder son of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, struck by brain hemorrhage following conflict with a member of Saddam's Fedayeen on Tuesday. Mosuah al-Nahrain in its website on Thursday quoted sources north of Iraq as saying that very tough and indecent orders, issued by Uday, who heads Saddam's Fedayeen, had provoked the conflict as the young man attacked Uday. Uday's bodyguards then beat the man to injury. The website declined to give further comments.

Russian site RosbaltNews has picked up the story and adds this:

Saddam Hussein's aides are refusing to confirm this information although they admit that a fight did indeed take place in Saddam's palace.

John Robson writes in The Ottawa Citizen about Canada's lack of will to participate in the confrontation with Iraq, and draws on a small but evocative episode from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that did not make it into the film version.

The Gollum Option Fails on Iraq

Can I talk for a minute about The Lord of the Rings? You may say with the world on the brink of war this is no time to retreat into fantasy. (Or you may say the reverse.) But it's with a cold, beady and realistic eye that I want to bring up Gollum and the oliphaunts.

For those of you not in the habit of quoting Gimli son of Gloin verbatim, let me explain that Gollum is a wretched, self-absorbed creature, twisted by power, with an idiosyncratic but charming manner of speech. At one point, brave honest hobbit Sam Gamgee asks if in Gollum's restless wandering pursuit of the ring he has ever seen oliphaunts (like our elephants but much bigger), and Gollum replies, referring to himself in the third person, that he "has not heard of them. He does not want to see them. He does not want them to be." I say that same approach has led Canada into a dishonourable dead end on Iraq.

Our government took the Gollum option. Asked if it had ever seen a choice between UN inaction and U.S. action, it didn't want it to be. In the end I doubt the government will derive any more partisan than diplomatic advantage from doing so, let alone honour.

Oh, by the way, shortly after Sam's conversation with Gollum, an oliphaunt erupts onto the scene arrayed for battle with many troops on its back and a bloody conflict ensues.

Overpaid windbags in the U.S. Senate violated common sense and our nation's strategic interests today. Particular scorn should be heaped on freshman senator Norm "blowin' in the wind" Coleman, R-Minnesota. What a sellout to the environmental lobby and junk science. Maybe we wouldn't have to compromise with Middle East dictators if we would just use our own resources.

The Senate narrowly rejected oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge Wednesday as eight Republicans defied party leaders and the White House on an issue at the core of President Bush's energy agenda.

Only hours before the vote, freshman Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., under intense pressure, signaled he might change his mind and vote in favor of drilling. In the end, Coleman, who succeeded the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, an ardent drilling foe, sided with the Democrats after it became clear that the pro-drilling side was two votes short of victory. He said he did so "with mixed emotions."

The Anchorage Daily News has published the roll call of votes. Find your senator and see if he/she is an idiot.

A report from The Times (UK) indicates that Saddam Hussein's infrastructure for terror may be imploding.

Masses of Iraqi soldiers are deserting and senior members of President Saddam Hussein's ruling family circle are defecting as the countdown to a British and US invasion reaches its final hours. In northern Iraq, on the border with Kurdistan, up to three-quarters of some Iraqi regiments have already fled.

And in a highly significant development in Baghdad a half-brother of President Saddam, who is regarded as the dictator's closest adviser, has fled in the past week to Syria. Sab'awi Ibrahim Hasan Al-Tikriti, who is regarded in the United States as a possible war criminal, has sought refuge in Damascus. His flight from Baghdad suggests "fractures developing within the regime", according to a secret-level intelligence report which The Times has seen. The reports, which are updated at least four times daily and distributed among senior British and US officers paint a picture of the dying hours of Saddam's 30-year iron grip on Iraq as it finally and dramatically falls apart, even before the British and US invasion gets underway.

Guess maybe Saddam reads USA Today too.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is intensifying his efforts to hide in Baghdad before the onset of war, U.S. officials said. Saddam went on television Tuesday, appearing in military fatigues for the first time in years. After that, American officials said, he took steps to lower his profile in the city to an even greater degree than normal. Saddam, whom officials describe as obsessed with his personal security, keeps a network of bunkers and other hiding places in and around the capital. He moves between them frequently, surrounded by security forces.

Oh... that's right, he's their fearless maximum leader. I must be confused...

Asked Wednesday after the parliament's session whether Saddam would bow to U.S. demands and flee, Hammadi said: "He will be in front of everyone. He will fight and guide our country to victory. This (fleeing) is absolutely unthinkable."

USA Today published a promising article this morning about a risky planned operation to find and kill Saddam Hussein. Well worth reading - here's hoping it comes true.

Armed with high-tech weapons, night-vision goggles and pictures of their targets, small teams of Delta Force commandos will soon descend on the outskirts of Baghdad to begin the most anticipated mission of the war: capturing or killing Saddam Hussein. Teams of the Army's elite 360-man force have been assigned to hunt and, if necessary, kill Saddam, his sons Qusai and Uday, and at least a dozen of Iraq's top military and political leaders, according to senior Pentagon officials with direct knowledge of the mission.

USS Kitty Hawk planes attacked Iraq today.

British and American warplanes have bombed targets in southern Iraq as the deadline for war approaches. Sky News correspondent James Forlong is on board the American aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf, from where 10 warplanes involved in the attack took off. He said the aircraft - two 'Top Gun' F-14 Tomcats and eight F/A-18 Hornets - returned safely. Forlong spoke to one of the pilots, who said their targets included an Iraqi intelligence unit and surface-to-air missile sites. He said it was the first time planes from the Kitty Hawk had been involved in bombing targets in the 'no-fly' zone. "This is clearly part of a more aggresive targeting of targets on the ground," Forlong said. "The mood on the ship now is one of nervous anticipation. Everyone here knows it is very close," he added, referring to an imminent full-scale attack.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle made some perfidious remarks about GWB, further demonstrating the Left's relentless politicization of everything, even war.

"I'm saddened that the president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we are now forced to war," Daschle told leaders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees meeting here for a legislative conference. "Saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country."

Republicans responded with verve.

House Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois said on Tuesday: "Those comments may not undermine the president as he leads us into war, and they may not give comfort to our adversaries, but they come mighty close."

Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, said, "I think Senator Daschle clearly articulated the French position."

Tom DeLay had the best comment: “Is Tom Daschle the official Democrat hatchet-man or just a taxpayer-funded pundit?” DeLay asked. “Fermez la bouche, Monsieur Daschle.”

Couple of one-liners that I enjoyed recently:

Leno: What we’re doing, basically, is giving these key Iraqi officials instructions on how to surrender. See, this where we could have used the French.

Kilborn: Did you see "CSI: Miami" tonight? They drew a giant chalk outline around Iraq.

via NewsMax.com

Sounds like journalists inside Iraq are getting out, which only makes sense given the coming storm. (Maybe Dan Rather would tie himself to a nearby tree.) Would-be war correspondents take note!

Correspondent — or collateral damage? Faced with the possibility of dying in an air raid or being taken hostage, some leery journalists are leaving Iraq and a potential arsenal of blockbuster stories. Both ABC and NBC have ordered reporters and crews to leave the country before the action turns hostile. CNN has left two correspondents in Iraq, and CBS has kept one. "The harsh fact is that a dead journalist can't do the job, can't gather the facts, can't report them to the world," William L. Winter, president of the American Press Institute, said yesterday.

Laurie Mylroie writes in today's OpinionJournal about the mysterious identity of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the captured Al Qaeda mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and other Baluch terrorists. Her speculations may indicate a direct link between 9/11 and Iraq. Previously published reports have already documented Iraqi tampering with public records while they occupied Kuwait.

Their identities are based on documents from Kuwaiti files that predate Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation, and which are therefore unreliable. While in Kuwait, Iraqi intelligence could have tampered with files to create false identities (or "legends") for its agents. So, rather than one family, these terrorists are, quite plausibly, elements of Iraq's Baluch network, given legends by Iraqi intelligence.

U.S. authorities may unravel the story very quickly if they pursue the question of Mohammed's identity, instead of assuming they know who their captive really is. As for the larger issue of these murderously anti-American Baluch, that matter may become clear soon, once U.S. forces take Baghdad--and take possession of Iraq's intelligence files.

Lots of photos from the USS Kitty Hawk are visible around the Web today.

CAPTION: Aviation Ordnance Specialist Petty Officer 3rd Class Nicole Keanaaina helps carry an AIM-120 guided missile from an F/A-18 Hornet on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.

CAPTION: F/A-18 Hornet pilots Lt. Chris Smith, left, of Augusta, Ga., and Lt. Dan Monlux, of northern Calif., walk off the flightline aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Gulf.

CAPTION: Flight deck directors called shooters give the signal to launch an F/A-18 Hornet, left, as an F-14A Tomcat is launched from the waist catapult aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk

The USS Kitty Hawk is girding itself for combat.

The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk met with an ammunition ship, the USNS Flint, to load more 1,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition bombs and Phoenix air-to-air missiles. Crews waited to load the weapons onto the carrier's F/A-18 and F-14 warplanes. "We might be able to use them quickly," said Capt. Thomas A. Parker, the carrier's commander. "We've got some room down below, so we're going to fill her up with as much as we can hold."

A good quote from a Kitty Hawk officer today.

"I think I'd probably have a better chance of being elected pope than we have of Mr. Saddam Hussein leaving the country," Capt. Thomas Parker said aboard the USS Kitty Hawk... "So this is probably going to follow to its logical conclusion."

The AP reported on how troops in the Gulf reacted at 4:00 a.m. local time to GWB's address from the White House, including some personnel on the Kitty Hawk.

"We deal with what we got," said Seaman Erik Canales, 21, from West New York, N.J., an information systems technician also on the mess deck. He said Bush's speech made him more concerned about safety because of the risk of attack from Iraq. "I want this over with quick so I can be with my wife and children," he said. "But this is my job, and the job comes first. This is why I joined. I am here for my country."

The Hopewell (Va.) News profiles the family of Petty Officer 3rd Class Fredrick Logan, who is serving aboard the Kitty Hawk.

"He started out just washing the planes," Virginia added. "Now he's fixing and preparing planes for the pilots." The proud mother added that he does practically everything with the planes besides flying them.... "He told me when he joined the Navy that being an airplane mechanic was one of the most dangerous jobs," Virginia said of her son's job.

A Florida local paper story features home support for a Kitty Hawk sailor.

Sailor Linda Ekberg, 25, is in the Gulf, but that might be the most secure spot for her, said her sister, Sofia Ekberg-Capozzi of Davie. Ekberg is stationed on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.

"We're relieved that she's in the military on the carrier because that's probably one of the safest places for her," Ekberg-Capozzi said.

Ekberg-Capozzi and her husband, Michael, a Marine Corps veteran of the first Gulf War, are "excited and fearful" for their deployed sailor. But they both strongly support a war soon if there must be one.

Now we know why there has been a pretty steady stream of Kitty Hawk media, from a story on how reporters are covering the Gulf scene.

The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the northern Persian Gulf had 20 news reporters from six countries on board last week.

The Times (UK) has published a letter that re-surfaces some highly relevant data.

In the key period between 1973-91 the US exported a mere $5 million of weapons to Iraq; more reprehensibly the UK sold $330 million-worth of arms. Of much greater interest are the arms export totals to Iraq of the four countries most against military action: Germany with $995 million, China $5,500 million, France $9,240 million, and the Russians a massive $31,800 million. So the claim that we armed Saddam has to be treated with a degree of care, particularly by those who would award the moral high ground in this debate to the leaders of nations such as Germany, France and Russia.

via Jim Miller on Politics

Interesting news in The Telegraph today about my former French employer. Definitely part of the political/economic culture that has led them to prop up Iraq and attempt to conceal their dirty history with a murderous dictator. They're used to it, and they genuinely think it makes them superior to naive Americans.

The most far-reaching financial scandal in French history reached court yesterday after eight years of investigation, the death and flight of several witnesses, and a concerted government effort to ensure the less savoury elements of France's Africa policy are not exposed to public scrutiny.

For the next four-and-a-half months, the former top brass of Elf, the oil giant, will have to explain what happened to hundreds of millions of pounds diverted from company accounts for bribes and personal enrichment. No major government figures have been implicated, but Elf's history as a cover for all manner of Franco-African shenanigans is the backdrop for the trial.

Reuters has distributed a cool picture of JDAMs on the USS Kitty Hawk. "Annihilation" sounds good to me.

CAPTION: Mission annihilation: An aviation ordnance man pushing 1,000-pound MK-83 JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) bombs across the flight deck of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in the northern Gulf yesterday. The United States, with its arsenal of smart bombs and missiles, is banking on the shock of a blitzkrieg to annihilate Iraq.

President George W. Bush spoke powerfully tonight. The White House site has the transcript and video. Time to rock and roll.

The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.

On the way home from work today I heard a pretty interesting report on NPR about our psy/info war against Iraq. NPR makes the audio available.

As U.S. forces assembled in the Persian Gulf region, the Pentagon conducted one of the biggest information wars in its history. Thousands of leaflets were dropped over Iraq. At Fort Bragg, N.C., engineers with the Psychological Operations Unit -- known as Psy Ops -- produced radio broadcasts that mimicked Iraqi stations. Key Iraqi officials have received E-mails and cell phone calls crafted by Psy Ops officers.

Vice President Dick Cheney's interview Sunday on "Meet the Press" was a winner; NBC has posted the transcript. Cheney gave a notable rundown of the recent history of France's nonsensical footdragging on Iraq. Why they've done this is one mystery. Why we believed they were being helpful last fall is another one.

I know, for example, in ’95, when there was an effort to pass a resolution, the Security Council finding him in material breach, France opposed it. In ’96, when there was an effort to pass a resolution condemning Saddam Hussein for his slaughter of the Kurds, France opposed it. In ’97, when there was an effort to block travel by his intelligence and military officials, France opposed it. In ’98, France announced he was free of all weapons of mass destruction—something nobody believed. And in ’99, of course, they opposed the creation UNMOVIC, the existing inspection regime, that they now want to place their total faith in with respect to trying to disarm Saddam Hussein. Given that pattern of behavior, it’s difficult for us to believe that 30 days or 60 more days are going to change anything.

Everyone is hoping that the looming clash with Iraq will be short and not gravely endanger our military or Iraqi innocents. (Well, almost everyone -- the hardcore Left is hoping for our defeat.) Col. Stuart Herrington, described as a retired Army counterintelligence officer, asks "Will They Fight?" in the OpinionJournal. He interrogated captured senior Iraqi commanders during the 1991 Gulf War.

The depth of distrust and hatred for Saddam Hussein among these army officers astounded us. "He does not trust us," one general told me, "To him we were expendable. That's why he positioned the Republican Guard with an escape route, and left the regular army to be defeated." Almost all of our prisoners expressed mixed feelings of envy and animosity toward the privileged Republican Guard ("They even had special phone lines to call their families," one colonel pointed out, "while our troops had to depend on letters that often did not arrive because of the fierce bombing.")

One hears that this time around, things will be different. After all, the reasoning goes, unlike 1991, Saddam Hussein has nothing to gain by restraint. Perhaps so, but when hostilities erupt, the militarily unschooled dictator's calls for a total war against the infidel invaders will have to be executed by an ill-equipped and demoralized army and a weary, untrusting population. Forced to choose between sacrificing their lives for an over-the-hill dictator or welcoming the Americans as liberators, I believe most of Saddam's army and millions of Iraq's citizenry will opt for celebration, not sacrifice.

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway spoke bluntly to his soldiers this weekend. Sounds like a good guy. His take on polls sounds every inch a Marine, a lot like the Marines I've known.

Conway told his troops not to worry about peace protests at home, pointing to a poll showing that 71 percent of Americans want to get the Iraq situation resolved now. "When we invade Iraq," he added, "that'll go up to 91 percent. And you know how I feel about it? Piss on everybody else."

But the 55-year-old general, who took over the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in November, was careful to caution his young fighters that they would be fighting to remove the "megalomaniac" President Saddam Hussein, not "to lay waste to this place."

Many Iraqis will not even want to fight, he told the Marines. If they surrender, he ordered, "bring 'em in, give 'em a cup of coffee, give 'em a cigarette, all right? Pat 'em on their skinny ass and send them to the rear. But we gotta be able to make the distinction, okay? We want to tell these people we're not here to occupy their country. We're here to get rid of this guy and turn it back over to them as soon as we can."

Like I told my kids recently, it really does add up to the Iraqis saying "we have no weapons of mass destruction, and if you attack us, we'll use them."

Iraqi troops south of Baghdad are armed with chemical weapons, Fox News has learned. Senior Defense and other U.S. officials confirmed that intelligence reports indicate that Saddam Hussein's troops are armed with chemical munitions.

Saddam said Monday that Iraq once had weapons of mass destruction for defense against Iran and Israel, but it no longer holds them, according to the Iraqi News Agency. "When Saddam Hussein says he has no weapons of mass destruction, he means what he says," Saddam said.

Several new stories are available today about what's happening aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in the Gulf.

A story from Stars and Stripes has more info on coping with sandstorms.

The USS Kitty Hawk's whistle started blowing Thursday as a dust storm quickly reduced visibility. The storm coated aircraft on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier with a powdery brown dust, some of it creeping into the hangar bay. It was the second storm to hit the Kitty Hawk since it arrived in the Persian Gulf at the end of February. Every week to 10 days, the particles blow in from Iraq, creating a smoglike line along the horizon.

Taipei Times profiles Su Tai-yuan, a Taiwan-born seaman, aboard the Kitty Hawk.

Su is not the only foreign service member aboard the Kitty Hawk. As a matter of fact, many of the sailors who would take this US naval ship to war against Iraq are not Americans. The Japanese-based aircraft carrier has a high percentage of non-Americans, particularly Asians, among its crew.

SkyNews has a reporter "embedded" on the Kitty Hawk and he's written about his experience so far.

US Navy Meets Reality TV: "Hey I just wanna be on TV," the young aircraft repairman called across the cavernous hangar-bay of the USS Kitty Hawk. And it seems this time The Pentagon thinks the same. It is a bold experiment and one born out of years of frustration, wariness and out-and-out distrust between the media and the military. Now, instead of keeping journalists at arm's length, they are to be embraced

At least three new articles this weekend relating to the USS Kitty Hawk.

The AP has filed a story about how Navy families back home cope with long deployments, profiling the Hesketts, a Kitty Hawk family.

Navy Cmdr. Mitch Heskett's home away from home is a ship longer than three football fields and towering 201 feet above the surface of the Persian Gulf. His job: supervising about 280 sailors who assemble the bombs to be loaded onto dozens of fighter jets that would fly from the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk if the United States and its allies go to war in Iraq.

A huge task, to be sure, but what really wows Heskett is the job his wife does raising their seven children back home in Virginia Beach, Va., while he is away. He has been home only twice since his current deployment - the 12th in his 28-year career - began in July 2001. "I have said it for the 25 years we have been married and truly believe in the saying 'Navy wife - the toughest job in the Navy,"' Heskett said in an e-mail interview last week. "It takes a very special person to live this type of life as a spouse. Not all can."

Stars and Stripes profiles the Terons, two married sailors stationed on separate ships, both in the Gulf - the Kitty Hawk and the USS Cowpens.

A few weeks ago, Seaman Monasol Teron strolled outside around the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk as it was getting refueled. Looking past the refueling ship that had pulled up alongside, she saw a familiar cruiser also getting some gas. “That’s my husband’s ship!” she said, as she ran to the computer. After pounding out a frantic note, she rushed back outside. “By the time I got up here, he was out there waiting,” said Monasol, who started jumping up and down and blowing kisses to her husband, Petty Officer 2nd Class George Teron, who is stationed aboard the USS Cowpens.

A third story features the weather specialists on the Kitty Hawk and other carriers in the Gulf.

Meteorologists aboard three U.S. carriers in the northern Gulf work closely with land-based counterparts to build an hour-by-hour picture of conditions throughout the region, said Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gallaudet, head of the Kitty Hawk’s weather division. The job involves calculating temperatures, wind speed and direction around the ship as well as over Iraq, where a third of the more than 60 flights a day launched from the Kitty Hawk conduct patrols in the southern “no-fly zone.”

Tony Parkinson in The Age (Australia) says it all: "Saddam is a real threat - just ask the Kurds." Remember Halabja.

Excerpts:

Fifteen years ago today, the people of Halabja awoke to the roar of aircraft engines. It was just before sunrise in the Kurdish provinces of north-eastern Iraq. By midday, an estimated 5000 civilians, 75 per cent of them women and children, were dead. Outlying villages knew a day earlier that something evil was afoot. The Iraqi military had been seen throwing paper from helicopters, ostensibly testing wind patterns. Then had come a shower of small metal objects and a strange, sweet smell. Sheep and goats were soon dying in the fields and small children in hillside camps began vomiting inexplicably.

The next day, March 17, the air raids came relentlessly, for six hours or more. There were no violent explosions, merely clouds of gas. But to be exposed directly was to be paralysed, then killed, in seconds. Accusing the Kurds of treachery during his war on Iran, Saddam Hussein had ordered his military to bombard these impoverished villagers with some of the deadliest toxins known to man: sarin, tabun, mustard gas and VX.

This was but one chapter of a gruesome campaign Saddam called al-Anfal, a systematic attempt to exterminate a Kurdish minority Saddam had deemed alien, ethnically inferior and troublesome to his rule.

The best comparison may well be what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, when 3000 innocent lives were obliterated in the space of a few minutes, as part of a calculated strategy to terrorise and intimidate a civilian population. Both events demonstrate what happens when a ruthless totalitarian ideology sets a course of wilful destruction.

For fascists and dictators, there are no rules other than those they set for themselves, no qualms about legitimacy or the rule of law: in fact, the more savage the atrocity, the crueller the aggression, the better to bend others to your will. This is not unfamiliar territory for Western democracies. In the 20th century, they confronted, and defeated in turn, Nazism and Stalinism.

The sort of Islamo-fascism that characterises the thinking of both Saddam and al-Qaeda is simply another permutation of the same oppressive tradition.

International hand-wringing about our "cowboy" president continues. No need to repeat the various mewlings; it's all nonsense the way the euros and others mean it. But it did make my lovely & talented spouse recall today Gene Autry's "Cowboy Code." We could do a lot worse than have a true "Cowboy" as our leader. (Comments about no. 1 below.)

1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. He must always tell the truth.
4. He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.
5. He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. He must help people in distress.
7. He must be a good worker.
8. He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.
9. He must respect women, parents, and his nation's laws.
10. The Cowboy is a patriot.

I'm sure GWB's opponents would try to jump on no. 1 ("never shoot first"). It's still clearly valid of course. Iraq under Saddam has already:

- Attacked Iran and started a war that killed thousands
- Committed violence, repression, and genocide against its own people, killing thousands
- Invaded, occupied, and looted Kuwait
- Attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush
- Shot repeatedly at Alliance warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones
- Fomented the recent assassination of our AID official in Jordan
- Provided material support to Al Qaeda, killers of 3,000 Americans and friends on Sept. 11, 2001
- Actively supported terrorists to kill hundreds of Israeli citizens

I think this partial list constitutes "shooting first."

DEBKA has posted an astonishing article today that sounds like a scene from a James Bond movie. They are reporting verbatims from a secret confrontation between a U.S. military officer and Saddam Hussein, with a former president of Lebanon present. I wonder if we will ever find out if this is true?

On March 8, former Lebanese president Gemayel took US colonel to Saddam’s palace on secret mission to persuade him to leave and prevent war:

"If you don’t leave, we’ll target you,” said US Colonel. Saddam replied:”I’ll send you home in a box” and “I’m not afraid to die.”

”When do you intend to attack and try to kill me?” Saddam asked. ”Basically, after the March 19 deadline passes,” came the reply. ”You managed to get me to destroy my missiles,” the Iraqi leader said, pausing for effect. “Is the 19th the date of the attack or just the day when you want me to leave Iraq? After all, that’s what you came for.”
The US colonel answered: “According to our orders, that’s the date when we are supposed to head out and get you. And we’ve already been told, ‘Don’t come back with him left in place.’”

The Telegraph in the UK is reporting that anti-Saddam unrest is taking place in Iraq. This may be an indication that our campaign will find a situation ripe for "liberation" but also a harbinger of the chaos that will follow. I am confident that our leadership is prepared for this, but it's still not going to be easy.

Open acts of defiance by opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime have intensified in the past week, with saboteurs carrying out attacks against Iraq's railway system and protesters openly calling for the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator. The most blatant act of sabotage took place 20 miles south of the north Iraqi city of Mosul when members of the Iraqi opposition blew up a stretch of track on the Mosul-Baghdad railway, causing the derailment of a train.

Before fleeing back to their base in Kurdistan, they left piles of leaflets by the side of the track urging the Iraqi soldiers who were sent to investigate the explosion to join the "international alliance to liberate Iraq" from "Saddam the criminal". In a separate incident, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a train illegally transporting fuel from Baghdad to Syria.

Demonstrations were also reported to have taken place in Kirkuk, where an estimated crowd of 20,000 marched on the Ba'ath party's main administrative headquarters demanding Saddam's overthrow. Three posters of the Iraqi leader were torn down and a grenade was thrown at the government building. One senior Ba'ath official was reported killed in the attack.

An AP article about military supply management for our forces in the Middle East included some factoids about life on the USS Kitty Hawk.

In one recent resupply, crates of food brought aboard the USS Kitty Hawk - which serves 17,000 meals a day - included lobster tails that were grilled and served with melted butter for the officers' Sunday dinner. Enlisted men had steamed chicken. While salt water surrounds a carrier, clean water is always limited. So the Kitty Hawk makes its own. Onboard desalination plants distill some 380,000 gallons daily - enough to allow the sailors to take hot showers.

Violence is coming from the "peace" activists, despite reminders from authorities. Prepare to see the police and military vilified when they come to blows with utopians and the hardcore leftists who organize them.

Security forces at Vandenberg Air Force Base may use ``deadly force'' against protesters if they infiltrate the military complex if a war starts, officials said. Some anti-war activists plan to trespass onto base grounds in hopes of disturbing Vandenberg's mission and to vandalize sensitive equipment they contend helps guide the war effort. Vandenberg officials revealed Friday that military security police may shoot to kill, if necessary, to protect base residents and machinery. The directive has always been in existence, but a base spokeswoman said it is more critical now that people understand its severity.

A provocative essay [see update below] about the strategic clash between Arab and Western cultures is circulating widely via e-mail. I got it today from my sister. The essay is titled "Why should the Middle East be turned upside down?" However, the e-mail copy has been stripped of the author's name and source. After reading it, I tracked it to an interesting site called FreeLebanon.org; the author's name is Muhammad Oueiny. There's a lot of content on the site and some prominent names (Jeane Kirkpatrick, Frank Gaffney & others) listed as members. I'll be watching this site, and I recommend that you read the essay as well. Very thought-provoking.

UPDATE (3/16/03): Blogger Steven C. Den Beste has contacted me to say that the article was plaigarized from his site. Sounds like there will be some correspondence about this, and I will post further updates as received. Plaigarism is a serious offense and it would make me wonder about the integrity of FreeLebanon.org.

FURTHER UPDATE (3/16/03): The link at FreeLebanon.org has been disabled which isn't a vote of confidence about their ownership of the essay. Visit Den Beste's blog for the real thing.

NEW UPDATE (1/15/04): Current visitors via USS Clueless feel free to browse around the current version of Petrified Truth, not just the old Blogspot edition. Cheers.

We must attack Iraq. We must totally conquer the nation. Saddam must be removed from power, and killed if possible, and the Baath party must be shattered.

Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia should be dealt with as soon as we are done with Iraq. They are the major symbols of decay in the world and are hindering the Middle East at large from moving to the 21st century with their disinformation campaign and pounding rhetoric.

Our enemy is a culture which is deeply diseased. Our enemy holds to a traditional belief, a traditional culture. The problem with our enemy's culture is that in the 20th century it was revealed as being an abject failure. By any rational calculation, it could not compete, and not simply because the deck was stacked against it. The problem was more fundamental; the culture itself contained the elements of its own failure.

I'm looking forward to seeing this headline from The Independent (UK) come true: "US preparing to abandon UN and launch war within a week." And planning to enjoy the opprobrium that will be heaped on the head of Jacques Chirac. The Brits have already started.

The United States sent a powerful signal last night that it will soon abandon efforts to win a second United Nations resolution, in effect clearing the decks for military action against Iraq late next week.

As time ran short on the diplomatic front, the British Government launched a blistering attack on France, blaming Paris for the likely collapse of its attempts to secure a new resolution. Tony Blair's official spokesman accused the French government of injecting "poison" into the diplomatic bloodstream. He attacked French "intransigence", insisting that Britain was winning support for a fresh resolution until Monday night, when Jacques Chirac, the French President, said he would veto it.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said it was "extraordinary" that France, without proper consideration, rejected Britain's plans for a new resolution including six tests to measure Saddam Hussein's willingness to disarm. "The comment from the French government that it would veto whatever the circumstances has made negotiations very difficult," he said. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, said France had signed up to resolution 1441 so it was "an unreasonable blockage" if it failed to support a second resolution.

Taken aback by the vitriol of the British attacks, Paris suggested last night that it was still open to compromise in the UN, within limits.

Good article in the Washington Post about the role of the Internet in rallying the often unheard support for GWB's policies on Iraq.

While it's difficult to classify any group as "pro-war," organizations supporting President Bush's tough stand on Iraq are out in force on the Internet, using message boards, Web logs, online petitions and e-mail to rally support for using force to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power.

And there will be several public rallies today to counter the press attention given to anti-American demonstrations staged this weekend by utopians and our enemies. Will be interested to see if there is better media coverage and more balance this weekend.

As anti-war demonstrators descend once again on the nation's capital this weekend, they will find their efforts countered by groups loyal to President Bush and the idea that Saddam Hussein should be ousted from power in Iraq.... two counter-protests, one in Washington and the other in San Francisco, are being organized to highlight the importance of freedom.

President George W. Bush had more strong words in his radio address today. Let's hope the waiting ends soon because every bit of delay now adds to the danger for our military.

Crucial days lie ahead for the free nations of the world. Governments are now showing whether their stated commitments to liberty and security are words alone -- or convictions they're prepared to act upon. And for the government of the United States and the coalition we lead, there is no doubt: we will confront a growing danger, to protect ourselves, to remove a patron and protector of terror, and to keep the peace of the world.

The American public is taking care of business with the Dixie Chicks following their lead singer's empty-headed comments in London about GWB. The two country radio stations here in Houston have zapped them from playlists when listener polls indicated 75% opposition to hearing more Dixie Chicks right now. Serves them right. Their new CD was a boring disappointment, too; I think they have gotten full of pretense and a faux, posturing attitude. I was thinking of putting my copy up for sale on Amazon.com. Now I probably can't give it away.

Bud Kennedy in Fort Worth has today's best take on it so far.

If the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines had to holler something really stupid in London, why couldn't it have been, "Thank you, Detroit?" ...What's really frightening is that the British or anyone else might attach the least bit of significance to the political opinion of a 28-year-old music-school dropout and country singer from Lubbock. As far as I can tell, Maines has had only one bit of experience that might qualify her to comment on global events: Once, she sang at an Italian restaurant in Lubbock. Otherwise, her resume lists no accomplishments in global diplomacy, unless you count her romance and marriage to actor Adrian Pasdar, an American of Iranian descent.

The Boston Globe has an interesting article about the implications of our superior ability to wage "24/7 war." I'm hoping that these kind of issues have been at least part of the slowdown on Iraq in the last few weeks. Waiting on a phase of the moon is more palatable than waiting for the U.N. to make a decision.

The Bush administration has proposed Monday as a deadline for Iraq to disarm, but if diplomatic wrangling delays an invasion it could accentuate a key US military advantage. The March moon becomes full on Tuesday and starts diminishing each night until April 1, and for American forces, who have long boasted that they ''own the night,'' the darker the better.

In case you were still wondering if the United States should entrust its security to the United Nations, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has demonstrated his utopian intellectual mediocrity for all the world to see... in an interview with MTV.

On big issues like war in Iraq, but in many other issues [the U.S.] simply must be multilateral. There's no other way around. You have the instances like the global warming convention, the Kyoto protocol, when the U.S. went its own way. I regret it. To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war. We will have regional conflicts and use of force, but world conflicts I do not believe will happen any longer. But the environment, that is a creeping danger. I'm more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict.

The insightful John Fund has posted a good article examining the annoying Hollywood element in the "anti-war" noise. The subtitle brings us quickly to the point.

Stars and Gripes: Hollywood celebs aren't antiwar. They just hate the president.

Hollywood celebrities have become the most visible opponents of liberating Iraq. But as proof that where you stand depends on whether your friends are in power, let's look back at how those same celebrities reacted when Bill Clinton deployed U.S. power in Afghanistan, Sudan and Kosovo.

The article is worth reading in full, but Fund doesn't capture here another important element, which is also on full display at the U.N. It's not just resentment of GWB personally or just ideologies in conflict. It's also a mindset where both utopians and politicians are very comfortable saying things they either don't really believe at all (this is called lying by ordinary people), or espousing goals (e.g., getting rid of Saddam) when they have no intention or interest in following through. The reason Hollywood and congressional Democrats were quite happy to support Clinton when he mouthed off about Saddam was they knew that he would never actually do anything. The reason Clinton was willing to attack Saddam verbally was he knew all along he would never attack Iraq militarily. The reason the French were willing to endorse Resolution 1441 last fall was that they never had any intention of seeing action taken.

So the reason the Left's panties are knotted now is that GWB has said "let's walk the walk, not just talk the talk." It would be amusing from a political anthropology viewpoint if it didn't involve suffering and death for innocents and our soldiers.

The penetrating sandstorms in the Gulf region even affect the USS Kitty Hawk offshore. Apparently this stuff is like talcum powder, not beach sand.

An AP story covers the experience both on land and on the carrier. (It also discloses the name of the AP correspondent - "Rohan Sullivan." Those of us who are Lord of the Rings fans can get a little special enjoyment from that.)

Sandstorms that swept through the Persian Gulf this week have grounded helicopters, disrupted traffic and prevented U.S. military mechanics from replacing equipment already fouled by wind-driven grit. On the USS Kitty Hawk, crew members hosed down the aircraft carrier's flight decks on Thursday to keep the insidious sand out of complex jet engines.

The Olympian site has a good picture posted.

CAPTION: Crews wash down an F-14A aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf on Thursday after an overnight sandstorm coated the ship and its planes with a layer of grit.

CNN has a report about the recent movements of Iraqi troops closer to ours. The page has a picture of F/A-18 Hornets on the Kitty Hawk deck. The CNN article includes this note:

The artillery and troop movements have occurred south of the 32nd parallel, putting them in the southern no-fly zone.... Military sources also tell CNN there may be a series of very aggressive air strikes against Iraqi troops and weapons in the southern no-fly zone -- rolling back the Iraqis as the U.S. military begins to move on Baghdad.

Another new poll confirms that the American people are strongly behind President Bush on dealing with Iraq. It's time to go, Mr. President.

A Fox News poll conducted this week finds 71 percent of Americans support using U.S. forces to disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and 20 percent oppose. Support has been at about the same level for the last eight weeks. This leads to a growing number of Americans who agree, “it’s time to get it over with in Iraq.” A month ago, a slim majority wanted to “stop the uncertainty,” while today over two-thirds agree with the let’s “get it over with” sentiment.

Additional delays in military action could reflect negatively on President Bush. If the president were to accede to the request of France and allow inspections in Iraq continue another six months, 44 percent say they would feel less favorable toward Bush compared to 28 percent who would feel more favorable. Almost 20 percent say it would make no difference. These responses are highly correlated with support for military action.

There are two below-decks stories today from the USS Kitty Hawk battle group in the Gulf. It takes a lot to deliver lethality to the enemy and many of these folks don't see the light of day all that often. Go Navy!

The AP has a story about the supply department on the Kitty Hawk itself.

This aircraft carrier has a helluva grocery bill. About once a week, a replenishment ship pulls alongside the USS Kitty Hawk with enough food to feed the nearly 5,500 people on board. The damage? About $400,000 each time.

There's also an interesting AFP report about handling Tomahawk cruise missiles, filed from the USS Cowpens, a ship in the Kitty Hawk battle group.

Anybody unfortunate enough to be standing on the deck of this ship when a Tomahawk cruise missile launches would probably be blown over the side. The missile will rise above the deck with a terrifying boom and pass through a towering ball of flame to begin its journey of destruction.

Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel explains today why "I oppose war, but not this one." Wiesel has been through a crucible of a life, and is a thoughtful figure on the world stage - always worth listening to even if one does not end up agreeing with him. Today he is right on the money.

Under normal circumstances, I might have joined those peace marchers who, here and abroad, staged public demonstrations against an invasion of Iraq. After all, I have seen enough of the brutality, the ugliness, of war to oppose it heart and soul. Isn't war forever cruel, the ultimate form of violence? It inevitably generates not only loss of innocence but endless sorrow and mourning. How could one not reject it as an option?

And yet, this time I support President Bush's policy of intervention to eradicate international terrorism, which, most civilized nations agree, is the greatest threat facing us today. Bush has placed the Iraqi war into that context; Saddam Hussein is the ruthless leader of a rogue state to be disarmed by whatever means is necessary if he does not comply fully with the United Nations' mandates to disarm. If we fail to do this, we expose ourselves to terrifying consequences.

George F. Will has clearly had it with France and the U.N. His column today artfully dismantles the utopians' wishful thinking.

War precipitates clarity as well as confusion, and the war against Iraq already has clarified this: The United Nations is not a good idea badly implemented, it is a bad idea.

For France, and for the United Nations through which France magnifies its own significance, the objective of disarming Iraq, if ever seriously held, has been superseded by the objective of frustrating America. And for America, the imperative of disarming Iraq will soon be supplanted by the imperative of insulating U.S. sovereignty from U.N. hubris.

Our military forces preparing for actual combat aren't the only ones who will be in harm's way when the Allies enter Iraq. The Washington Post has profiled an unusual team who will be actively seeking out the Iraqi WMD, some of them not even soldiers. They'll be taking great risks. We can only admire their bravery and wish them well.

The little-known 75th Exploitation Task Force is preparing for a crucial mission: flying into Iraq on helicopters close behind advancing allied troops to document suspected weapons of mass destruction those troops encounter. The unit's specialists will take samples and whisk them away for evaluation.

"The objective of this specific task force is to prove to the world what Saddam actually has," said Army Col. Richard McPhee... McPhee, a gruff veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, oversees an unusual group pulled together for the current campaign. It includes members of all branches of the U.S. armed forces, as well as the British military and a host of civilian U.S. agencies. Some are soldiers barely out of high school, others are expert scientists. "Everyone understands the importance of this," McPhee said of his team. "It's a great mission."

"A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline of courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.

"Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit this depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and their statements, and even more so in their self-serving rationales as to how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and even morally justified it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice."

An analysis of our current dilemma? Yes, in a way, but spoken with prescience in 1978 by Nobel Laureate Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn. I remember reading this text at the time, and then watching Solzhenitsyn fall out of (grudging) favor with the elites, a status he earned by exposing fully the horrors of the Soviet gulag. A great man who understood the profound moral implications of totalitarianism, and well worth studying anew.

A new article in The Weekly Standard examines how "the great Russian thinker foresaw the situation which now faces George W. Bush."

Dealing with the intriques-within-intrigues of Pakistan is mind-numbingly difficult, but we have to keep the pressure on. I'd like to see the constant critics of the U.S. go themselves to this part of the world, where murder-for-fun is still a favorite pastime, and try to do better.

Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies are hard at work trying to change their image as unfaithful friends of the US. The capture of 442 Al Qaeda terror suspects - including the March 1 arrest of top Al Qaeda lieutenant Khalid Sheik Mohammed - has given Pakistan's secretive Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) a lot to crow about. And the US has been quick with its public praise.

Yet US military officials in neighboring Afghanistan privately grumble that Pakistan remains a haven for Al Qaeda. And some Pakistani law-enforcement agents here say that numerous raids on Al Qaeda hideouts in the past year have been compromised by police or intelligence agents tipping off Al Qaeda to flee in advance - the type of leaks that could ultimately hinder the capture of Osama bin Laden.

Jay Leno said tonight that yesterday's test of the gigantic MOAB bomb in Florida had been a total success... miles away in Orlando, French tourists at Disney World heard the reverb and tried frantically to surrender.

The Defense Dept. has posted a video clip of the test. Geez.

One of many press accounts from around the world:

A monster bomb whose effect has been likened to the blast from a small nuclear weapon is ready for use if the US goes to war against Iraq. A live test of the 9,500-kg Moab - an acronym for Massive Ordnance Air Blast - was carried out at Eglin Air Force Base in southern Florida yesterday morning. It created a tremendous shockwave that shook nearby buildings and threw up a mushroom cloud over the test site.

An F-14 pilot on the USS Kitty Hawk is getting some good PR today in an AP photo being displayed on various news sites.

PHOTO CAPTION: Navy pilot Lt. Cmdr. Brady Barstosh, of Houston, Texas, left, talks with maintenance chief Kevin Dow of Vermont after Barstosh landed his F-14 Tomcat on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf, Sunday. Pilots report any problems with the craft to ground crews who repair problems before the next flight.

The importance of e-mail communications between our military forces abroad and loved ones here at home was examined by the New York Times today. Sounds like the military brass is aware of its importance, but also mindful that sensitive information could be exposed. So be careful, neighbors. But keep on typing 'til they say we can't.

Concerned that sensitive information might leak out, some units of the United States military are starting to clamp down on e-mail communication from their soldiers and sailors, who have been using it from ships, bases and even desert outposts to stay in touch with family and friends.... At the moment, much of the electronic communication is unmonitored by the military, providing an opportunity for what some fear could be inadvertent leaks.

Electronic connections bring an ease of communication not seen in the Persian Gulf war of 1991 before the widespread commercial use of the Internet and e-mail. "It's more wonderful than you can imagine," said Gary K. Richardson, a consultant in Napa, Calif., whose 32-year-old daughter, Patricia, is with an Army unit at an undisclosed location overseas. "When you get a message, you know that her hands were just on the keyboard and that she was alive and well just a few minutes ago."

Senator John McCain published an open letter today that demolishes the pusillanimous commentary issued earlier this week by the least successful president in modern times, Jimmy Carter, who claims the conflict with Iraq does not meet the criteria for a "just war."

Here are just a few key excerpts:

Critics argue that the military destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime would be, in a word, unjust. This opposition has coalesced around a set of principles of "just war" -- principles that they feel would be violated if the United States used force against Iraq.

Many also mistake where our government's primary allegiance lies, and should lie. The American people, not the United Nations, is the only body that President Bush has sworn to represent. Clearly, the administration cares more about the credibility of the Security Council than do other council members who demand the complete disarmament of the Iraqi regime yet shrink from the measures needed to enforce that demand. But their lack of resolve does not free an American president from his responsibility to protect the security of this country. Both houses of Congress, by substantial margins, granted the president authority to use force to disarm Saddam Hussein. That is all the authority he requires.

Our armed forces will fight for peace in Iraq -- a peace built on more secure foundations than are found today in the Middle East. Even more important, they will fight for the two human conditions of even greater value than peace: liberty and justice. Some of them will perish in this just cause. May God bless them and may humanity honor their sacrifice.

A little justice has been done with a misbehaving, utopian college instructor at Citrus College in California.

A college speech instructor who gave students extra credit for writing letters to President Bush opposing a war with Iraq has been placed on administrative leave and the president of the college said Tuesday he was sending a letter of apology to the White House. "Students confirmed if they did not protest the war they would not get the extra credit. That's inappropriate and we're not going to tolerate it,"

The Wall Street Journal says today: "Delaying action in Iraq is endangering American lives." Agreed. It's time to get on with it, Mr. President.

Mexican and French soldiers will not be doing any dying once the war finally does start. That privilege will belong to Americans (and some Brits and Aussies), and every day that they are prevented from starting to disarm Saddam is one more day he is able to prepare death traps for them and for us.

There are now daily reports that the Iraqi dictator has booby-trapped oil wells, dispersed his mobile poison labs or placed agents among Iraqi civilians. Yesterday's AP dispatch had him opening "a training camp for Arab volunteers willing to carry out suicide bombings against U.S. forces." Every day of delay also gives him, or al Qaeda, more time to plant or mobilize agents to attack the U.S. homeland.

There are other growing costs of delay. One is the economic damage from uncertainty--which is small compared with life and limb but seems large if you lose your job. Another is the lesson to other thugs, such as North Korea's Kim Jong Il, that they can also use the U.N. to stymie and wait out American resolve. And then there is the cost to President Bush's own political standing and credibility as he lets the world's pygmies tie him down like Gulliver.

Military preparations are actively underway in Turkey, despite the public back-and-forth between the U.S. and the Turkish government. The bottom line is still what happens to the Kurds; that seems to be the most important issue to Turkey. The Turks don't want to enable Kurdish autonomy or independence. But the Kurds are under de facto U.S. protection in northern Iraq, as well as having been double-crossed by everyone (including the USA) repeatedly for decades. Only tough choices here. Our government is going to need something imaginative for a solution.

Turkey's chief of military staff General Hilmi Ozkok has spoken of the "inevitability" of Turkish military involvement in a war on Iraq, despite parliament not sanctioning US forces a foothold on Turkish soil.

"Unfortunately, we are left to choose between worse and worst, not between good and bad," Ozkok said "If we would remain completely uninvolved in the war we will be faced with the same losses should we have been involved," he said in a public statement. "But we would remain without any say in the post-war situation or in any compensation for our losses from the war."

Heavy US military mobilization was reported following his remarks in the southern Mediterranean ports of Iskenderun and Mersin and in Silopi and Mardin towns close to the Iraqi border. US military convoys are reported to have resumed transportation of personnel, vehicles and supplies after a week's break.

Polls can be spun in lots of different ways, but even the New York Times felt compelled to blurt out the truth about a recent survey.

Americans are growing impatient with the United Nations and say they would support military action against Iraq even if the Security Council refuses to support an invasion, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.... there has been an increase in the number of Americans who say the United States has done enough to find a diplomatic solution in Iraq.

Stars and Stripes has a good background story about the role of signalmen on the USS Kitty Hawk.

Chief Petty Officer Darren Young talks to sailors on other ships without making a sound. Moving his arms in precise positions in a language called semaphore, the USS Kitty Hawk sailor communicates with the crew of a nearby vessel that’s refueling the aircraft carrier. “If a ship turns off its telephones and electronics, this is how we talk. … We’re a dying breed,” Young said of Navy signalmen.

The prime minister of Spain has been a good ally to the U.S. during the current debate about Iraq. He had a clear-eyed take yesterday on the situation.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, an active supporter of the United States on Iraq, on Monday linked the "material interests" of France, Russia and China in Iraq to their opposition to the use of force there.

"We don't have any material interests in Iraq...France has material interests in Iraq. Russia has material interests in Iraq. China has material interests in Iraq. We don't have any," Aznar told Telecinco television in drawing a distinction between governments on opposing sides within the U.N. Security Council. Asked by the interviewer if those interests explained the French, Russian and Chinese positions on Iraq, Aznar said, "That's a question only they can answer." "Simply, it seems to me they are on the wrong path and should be adding more pressure on (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein...They have the wrong orientation," Aznar said.

"What is the alternative to security today that the United States offers to the world? ... Can you really think about fighting against terrorism without the participation of the United States?" Aznar asked. Aznar said Iraq was a threat to Spain. "If in the end military intervention is unavoidable, I will not shed a tear for that regime because it is a threat to everyone, Spain included," he said.

An amazing letter home from a courageous U.S. soldier was published this weekend. Here's just a snip, but please click here and go read the entire thing.

I strongly believe in what we are doing and wish you were here to see for yourselves the honor and privilege that American soldiers aboard this ship are feeling, knowing that we are going to be a part of something so strong and so meaningful to the safety of our loved ones. Then you would know what this potential war is about.

We will stand tall in front of terrorism and defeat it. We as soldiers are not afraid of what may happen. We are only afraid of Americans not being able to understand why we are here.

I ask for your courage as Americans to be strong for us; I ask for your understanding in what we believe is right. I ask for your support in what we are sworn to do: defend our country and the life of all.

Thanks to BlogsofWar.com for the tip.

News from Europe today hit a little close to home: terrorists were sentenced to prison terms for plotting an attack against the city of Strasbourg, where my lovely and talented wife was a student in the 1970s. We've always dreamed of going back to visit together. Glad to see these ratfinks were caught in time.

Four Algerians said to have trained in camps financed by al Qaeda have been jailed for plotting a bomb attack. A court in Frankfurt found them guilty of planning the attack in the French city of Strasbourg in December 2000. The judge said the group had been encouraged to carry out an attack by the London-based Islamist group Abu Doha.
Prosecutors said the Algerians had trained in camps in Afghanistan financed by al Qaeda and claimed they had contacts with similar extremists in Britain and Italy and received logistic support from Britain.

"The accused wanted to hit the nerve centre of a free, Western, civilised society," Judge Karlheinz Zeiher told the court, saying the men had trained in Afghanistan so they could carry out attacks as part of a "Holy War" on the West. He said the men consciously chose Christian symbols like the Christmas market and the Strasbourg cathedral as their targets and wanted to punish France for backing the Algerian government.

An article in the The Telegraph (UK) presents a provocative scenario about the next steps in the war on terror, including that the conflict with Iraq is only a stepping stone to dealing with the bigger threat from Iran. The author also says the U.S. may very well quit the United Nations. Again, our president is not only willing to challenge the conventional wisdom but is determined to have us face up to the brutal and uncomfortable realities of the 21st century.

If this article is correct, things are going to get really interesting soon. Pulling out of the U.N. will make the elites go absolutely ape. A few excerpts:

So much attention has been focused on Iraq that most observers have ignored what stares us in the face. When President Bush made his "axis of evil" speech, singling out Iraq, North Korea and Iran, he was not simply looking for good headlines. He was revealing a template for action.

The war on terror is not simply about destroying the Taliban and taking down Saddam; it is a far more complex operation. The President has carefully set about action in ascending order of difficulty. First the Taliban. Then Saddam. Then the next step, Iran - the world's leading financier of terror. North Korea will be left to China to deal with, with Mr Bush making clear to China that, if it does not take its responsibilities seriously, Japan will be given nuclear weapons.

Mr Bush's most fundamental belief is that actions have consequences. If the UN behaves irresponsibly, it will pay the price. A phrase is doing the rounds: the US out of the UN, and the UN out of the US. Well-connected advisers tell me that if, as now seems likely, the UN refuses to back action against terror, Mr Bush will announce a "temporary" suspension of America's membership, to be accompanied by an offer: if the UN gets its act together and carries out long-overdue reforms, America (and its money) will return. But if there is no reform, the temporary withdrawal will, de facto, become permanent.

Several dispatches today from the USS Kitty Hawk on station in the Gulf.

This report from the AP profiles some of the crew who prepare the planes for war:

Known as ``Mag rats,'' the sailors who ready the bombs and missiles that are loaded onto the more than 70 warplanes aboard this carrier say the strike force wouldn't have much punch without them. ``Without us it's just an unscheduled airline,'' said Lt. Phil Szuba, 40, of Detroit, who heads one of the Kitty Hawk's magazines.

Storing too many battle-ready bombs on a ship is considered dangerous because of the risk of detonation. In most cases, the crews put the final touches on bomb casings stored on board, such as attaching computer guidance and detonation systems, and mechanisms to fix and release them from the planes.

The Japanese source Daily Yomiuri reports:

On the USS Kitty Hawk, which is operating in the Persian Gulf in preparation for a possible war with Iraq, tension is at a peak as warplanes make reconnaissance sorties day and night, some of them coming under attack from Iraqi forces. "For us, the war has already begun," said a 36-year-old sailor who has been aboard the Kitty Hawk and in the Gulf for nearly a month.

Stars and Stripes has its own story about their steel-beach picnic. I like this photo caption:

After less than 10 minutes, the [death metal/hardcore] band, Blood Clot, was pulled off stage because some sailors were slamdancing.

And the AFP lets us know the crew is handling everything just fine:

The psychologist and a chaplain aboard this aircraft carrier say few of the more than 5,000 sailors and airmen aboard this ship have come to them with worries about a war. "That's really been a lot less frequent than I expected," Lieutenant Jennifer Johnson, the ship's psychologist, told AFP in an interview.

Excerpts from Winston Churchill III's brilliant speech in Houston a few weeks ago are in today's Wall Street Journal (subscribers-only). Here are a couple of passages that are especially relevant today as France announces its intention to side with Saddam against the U.S.

The parallels between Saddam Hussein's repeated flouting of U.N. resolutions -- 17 over the past 12 years -- calls to mind the impotence of the U.N. forerunner, the League of Nations. In the 1930s, the victors of the First World War -- Britain, France and the U.S. -- fecklessly allowed the League of Nations' resolutions to be flouted. This was done first by the Japanese, who invaded Manchuria, then by the Italian dictator Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and, most gravely, by Nazi Germany.

Had the Allies held firm and shown the same resolve to uphold the rule of law among nations that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are demonstrating today, there is little doubt that World War II, with all its horrors, could have been avoided. Indeed it was for that reason that Churchill called World War II the "Unneccesary War." Tragically, the same sickness that infected the League of Nations -- a feebleness of spirit, an unwillingness to face the realities of the world we live in, and a determination to place corrupt self-interest before the common good -- now afflicts the governments of France, Germany and Belgium.

The entire speech is still available for listening at Houston Public Radio KUHF.

Washington insiders held their Gridiron Dinner this weekend, an annual event where various journalists and politicians from both parties get together and exchange witticisms, sometimes including skits and songs. It's all a little in-bred for my taste, but at least this year, Senator Bill Frist got in a well-deserved zinger against another public nuisance, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), who has for several years done everything possible to plug up the system for review of President Bush's judicial nominees:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a heart surgeon from Tennessee, promised the crowd that "rather than waste your time telling jokes, I have prepared for your edification tonight demonstration." He then went on to use a pointer to demonstrate how the legislative journey compares to the human digestive system -- starting at the mouth, or introduction of legislation, and ending at the other end, where everything comes out.

"As you might imagine, the president often doesn't want anything to do with what comes out down here," he said. Referring to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Frist said he often wonders how someone from "such a tiny state can cause stomach trouble and pain and keep things from passing. Then I remember the little kidney stone. The man is a human kidney stone."

The Financial Times has a (so-far) exclusive report Sunday about the pursuit of Osama bin Laden as it is unfolding this weekend. Sounds like the hunt is white-hot right now; let's keep our fingers crossed that this megalomaniac will assume room temperature soon. [Note: FT puts most of its content behind paid subscription access, so their article may not be public for long.]

A convoy of al-Qaeda militants that tried to escape into Pakistan last week was forced back into an area of Afghanistan in which Osama bin Laden was reported to have been seen a few days earlier, intelligence and diplomatic officials said on Sunday. According to Islamist activists close to al-Qaeda, the convoy was carrying at least one and possibly two of Mr bin Laden's sons when it was attacked in the south-western part of Afghanistan's Nimroz province on Thursday. There are still conflicting and unverifiable reports of the fate of those attacked. One activist said the convoy had already crossed the border into Pakistan when it was intercepted and forced back into Afghanistan, where a shoot-out took place between the al-Qaeda militants and Afghan forces.

Western intelligence officers believe al-Qaeda officials are making an effort to leave Afghanistan, despite the dangers involved in breaking cover.

Apparently ordinary Iraqi soldiers are in favor of a "rush to war," according to report in today's Sunday Mirror in the UK.

Terrified Iraqi soldiers have crossed the Kuwait border and tried to surrender to British forces - because they thought the war had already started. The motley band of a dozen troops waved the white flag as British paratroopers tested their weapons during a routine exercise. The stunned Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade were forced to tell the Iraqis they were not firing at them, and ordered them back to their home country telling them it was too early to surrender.

A pro-military rally near McChord Air Force Base in Washington was among many across the nation this weekend, including 2500 people in Pittsburgh. Lots of folks are realizing that "anti-war" and "worried-about-war" feelings have been hijacked by those who are really anti-America and anti-military. Glad to see everyday citizens showing their loyalty to our troops.

About 250 people gathered in the rain Saturday above Interstate 5 to wave flags and show support for American troops. Rally-goers held patriotic signs and banners and invited passing drivers to honk as they stood on an overpass at the exit to McChord Air Force Base. The rally was organized by members of "Operation Support Our Troops." More rallies are planned this month at Camp Murray and in Bellevue, organizer Dale Gould said. Many of those who lined the sidewalks have sons, daughters or other relatives in the military.

Scott Chesley, 51, of Auburn said he sends pictures taken at the rallies to his 21-year-old daughter aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. "It has an impact on their morale," he said.

DEBKA is reporting today that Turkey will officially allow U.S. troops to operate in the country within a matter of days.

Since Wednesday night, March 5... US supplies management teams of the US 1st Cavalry Division have been posted at four Turkish sea harbors, taking delivery of the equipment of the US 4th Infantry Division discharged after a long wait at sea.

Meanwhile, Stars and Stripes has a fresh story that seems to fit the DEBKA report.

A 1st Infantry Division-led logistics task force has pushed deep into eastern Turkey to establish a new forward operating base just 100 miles from the Iraqi border.

Troops have waited for more than two weeks to move out of staging areas, while military gear has piled up along Iskenderun’s docks. Instead of grinding to a halt, however, the cogs of site preparation have quickened in recent days. Within hours of the 1st ID convoy pushing east out of Iskenderun to set up the new outpost, a fourth cargo ship brimming with more logistics gear began unloading along the port’s freshly cleared marshalling areas.

An interesting article in the New York Times discusses the leadership being shown by Jordan's King Abdullah II, a former Jordanian Special Forces commander who has decided to discretely, but strongly, support the U.S. against Saddam Hussein.

In the face of overwhelming opposition to a war among his own people, the king has quietly assented to stationing American and British Special Forces in Jordan's eastern desert. Some units, Western diplomats say, are already operating deep inside Iraq, scouting targets. In addition, Abdullah has welcomed hundreds of American troops staffing three Patriot missile batteries that will seek to shoot down any Iraqi missiles launched against Jordan — or, more likely, Israel.

Although the cooperation has been masked, it is an open secret in the streets of Amman and in the teeming Palestinian refugee camps where anti-American feelings run high. Travelers on the 250-mile route from Amman to Ruweished, near Iraq, have reported sightings of uniformed American soldiers traveling the highway in unmarked vehicles, and others have reported heavy American equipment being unloaded at Aqaba, Jordan's Red Sea port. Groups of trim, hardened, close-cropped Americans in civilian clothing checking into Amman's hotels on furlough are a common sight. Some are on military duty, others veterans working for private companies under Pentagon contracts. Asked what they have been doing in the desert, they offer wry smiles. "Let's just say that Saddam Hussein is in for a few surprises," said one.

Sounds like the crew of the USS Kitty Hawk got a day off today. Well-deserved, folks.

USS Kitty Hawk Crew, Deployed in Gulf, Holds 'Steel Beach Party' As Break From War Preparation.
Sailors and air crews aboard this aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf traded the roar of jet engines for the noise of punk rock guitars Saturday at an on-deck party thrown as a reward for 45 continuous days at sea. Daily flight operations conducted as part of the U.S. military buildup for a possible war with Iraq were interrupted to open the flight deck to the more than 5,000 crew for a "steel beach party," complete with beer, barbecue and bands

Planes have been launched from the Kitty Hawk about 60 times a day in the past four days, officials said, part of the U.S.-led military forces massing in the Gulf for a possible war on Iraq. Most operations have been routine proficiency flights, weapons and air-to-air refueling, senior officers said, though about one-third of the planes launched have patrolled the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. U.S. Hornets have been fired on from the ground at least once in the past week, pilots said.

Listened to an historian on a repeat of a 1995 Booknotes program today. Heard him say the following, which makes me ponder what the perspective of history might tell us one day in the future:

"... is the most difficult character to write about, I should think, in the whole of history. He was a man of immense contradictions, and I don't know of any biographer... who has felt that he's really somehow got the whole man or found the secret of him. [He] was an aristocrat; he was born to a wealthy and prominent family. He seemed, as a young man, to be a person who is intellectually shallow. He wasn't very good at school; he wasn't very interested, it seemed, in serious things. And even after he embarked on his political career, even after he became President of the United States, there were many who came away from conversations with him thinking him a person who had very little information, very little intellect, didn't seem very serious."

A slam against George W. Bush by one of our current crop of pseudo-intellectual snobs?

No, historian David Fromkin on Franklin D. Roosevelt. Here's the rest of this part of the transcript:

"And on the other hand, he was this man who, in the great strategic decisions of the Second World War, on the big things, was just about always right when even the most accomplished of his professional advisers were on the other side. He's a true mystery, but a magic personality -- somebody endlessly fascinating to think about and to write about."

Foreign affairs expert Mansoor Ijaz has more fresh takes on both the Middle East and North Korea on the Fox News site. Seems he was answering questions from the public! Too bad I missed my chance this time, but maybe he'll do it again. Here are a few snips:

"Only China exerts real control over North Korea's political and military activities. Therefore, you can assume that until China believes there is a problem, North Korea's threats are more bluster than reality.... keep in mind that Beijing revels in the fact that a tiny bankrupt rogue nation which China could force to back down in one telephone call gives so much heartburn to Washington's policy planners."

"The only interim solution is to insure quarantine of all North Korean seagoing vessels so that plutonium cannot be easily transferred into Al Qaeda hands on a Philippino pirate ship run by Abu Sayyaf. If we can track North Korean submarines and ships and insure they are not able to offload dangerous cargoes, we have a good chance of avoiding the most dangerous outcome from Pyongyang's nuclear blackmail."

Turns out Chrissie Hynde and her band The Pretenders are noxious public nuisances, too. A shame -- I used to sorta kinda like their sound on the radio. But they played like drugged-out sleepwalkers on Letterman the other night, and now we get these two stories about a recent show on the Left Coast. Free speech is one thing, but wishing death and defeat on our country is quite another. Consider how you spend your entertainment dollars, neighbors.

Story one: "Hynde is a tad anti-war. She's anti lots of stuff, and isn't afraid to growl about them all every time the music stops. 'Have we gone to war yet?' she asked sarcastically, early on. 'We (expletive) deserve to get bombed. Bring it on. Later she yelled, 'Let's get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!'

And there's this:

"Between songs, the pugnacious Hynde, in a classic black T-shirt and jeans, bantered and battled with the crowd. She... opined that she hopes the United States loses if it goes to war with Iraq ('Bring it on! Give us what we deserve!')."

Things continue to get crazier in Korea. I sure would like to find out more about the linkage between the North Korean nutburger-in-chief and Saddam. We know they've partnered before. Hard to believe the NK behavior is just taking advantage of our focus on the Middle East. This all seems like a deliberate attempt to open another front.

"The North Korean jets that intercepted a U.S. spy plane over the Sea of Japan last weekend were trying to force the aircraft to land in North Korea and take its crew hostage, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. One of the four North Korean MiGs came within 50 feet of the Air Force RC-135S plane and the pilot made internationally recognized hand signals to the U.S. flight crew to follow him, presumably back to his base... Pentagon officials say there is little doubt that the North Korean mission was a well-planned operation that used its top pilots flying two MiG-29 and two MiG-23 fighters."

Two certifiable public nuisances strutted their stuff today with notably mean-spirited comments about our commander-in-chief.

Helen Thomas, who should have retired long ago when she was only obnoxious, blames the focus on Iraq on the manipulations of the evil Karl Rove, presidential puppet-master. Citing a new book about Rove, she bloviates:

"They speculate that Rove wanted to keep war on the front burner to mask worries about the economy, corporate corruption, the high cost of prescription drugs and rising budget deficits, among other things."

Unfortunately, she slips while trying to make a witticism and blurts out: "The authors don't have a lot of evidence to support their theory." Guess now we can guess why this ancient, delusional columnist was deliberately not called on by President Bush during last night's press conference at the White House.

Tom Shales of the Washington Post stopped listening to the bees in his head long enough to complain in his column about the president's speaking style and even write the following outrageous slur:

"On the other hand, it hardly seems out of order to speculate that, given the particularly heavy burden of being president in this new age of terrorism -- a time in which America has, as Bush said, become a 'battlefield' -- the president may have been ever so slightly medicated. He would hardly be the first president ever to take a pill."

This is over the top even by Washington's septic-tank level of "analysis." Naturally, the editors of the Post have defended it. President Bush can't win -- either he's too relaxed and jovial, thereby demonstrating that he isn't thoughtful and serious (like a Democrat), or he's too somber and must be drugged. It would be breathtaking to consider this level of disrespect if these people weren't such pismires.

The insightful (and dapper) Mansoor Ijaz has another good take on the situation in Pakistan and the aftermath of capturing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

"One analyst with good sources on Al Qaeda's activities in the region suggests that the apprehension of Mohammed could be putting pressure on Usama bin Laden to leave the region. The interception of some letters in recent weeks believed to be written by bin Laden indicate that he is preparing to leave his hiding place, perhaps in eastern Pakistan. Fox News foreign affairs analyst Mansoor Ijaz said the capture of Mohammed adds to U.S. and Pakistani pressure on tribal leaders to stop aiding the FBI's most wanted fugitive. 'He had no choice [but to prepare an escape], because a) he was running out of money essentially to bribe them with and keep the safe harbor intact, and b) he was getting from a lot of tribal chieftains that it was time to go, and they could not hold the system up that could protect him any longer,' Ijaz said."

Bill Gertz has an expose in the Washington Times. If the French government is involved in this business , there'll be hell to pay.

"Iraq strengthens air force with French parts. A French company has been selling spare parts to Iraq for its fighter jets and military helicopters during the past several months, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The unidentified company sold the parts to a trading company in the United Arab Emirates, which then shipped the parts through a third country into Iraq by truck. The spare parts included goods for Iraq's French-made Mirage F-1 jets and Gazelle attack helicopters. An intelligence official said the illegal spare-parts pipeline was discovered in the past two weeks and that sensitive intelligence about the transfers indicates that the parts were smuggled to Iraq as recently as January. Other intelligence reports indicate that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring French weaponry illegally for years, the official said."

There must be an AP reporter aboard the USS Kitty Hawk -- here's another report. Maybe he'll profile our favorite top gun Patrick. Be careful up there, fellow infidels.

"ABOARD THE USS KITTY HAWK March 7 — U.S. pilots enforcing the no-flight zone over southern Iraq have been fired on from the ground in the past few days, returning pilots said Friday. As the number of air patrols launched from three U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf grows, pilots say Iraqi ground defenses are responding with greater aggression.... More than 160 warplanes mostly Hornets and F-14A Tomcats have been launched from the Kitty Hawk this week, about one-third of them to conduct patrols over Iraq."

Our President had a press conference last night and said some good things. He seems to have thought this thing through and understands his duty. Compare and contrast with certain prior occupants of the White House.

"My job is to protect America, and that is exactly what I'm going to do. People can ascribe all kinds of intentions. I swore to protect and defend the Constitution; that's what I swore to do. I put my hand on the Bible and took that oath, and that's exactly what I am going to do.

"I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat to the American people. I believe he's a threat to the neighborhood in which he lives. And I've got a good evidence to believe that. He has weapons of mass destruction, and he has used weapons of mass destruction, in his neighborhood and on his own people. He's invaded countries in his neighborhood. He tortures his own people. He's a murderer. He has trained and financed al Qaeda-type organizations before, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. I take the threat seriously, and I'll deal with the threat."

He also has the best approach to the UN: make 'em face the truth, even though they want to avoid it:

"No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam."

Another report from the carriers in the Gulf:

"Warplanes roared off the deck of the Kitty Hawk for the third straight day Thursday. F/A-18 Hornets and F-14A Tomcats armed with missiles and laser-guided bombs were backed by surveillance and radar-jamming planes in day and night operations.... Planes were also practicing refueling in flight and testing weapons delivery systems. A Navy special operations bomb disposal team also ran drills aboard the Kitty Hawk, practicing fast-roping and repelling techniques in the ship's cavernous hanger."

William Shakespeare has now weighed in on the current crisis!! Here is just a sample:

Saddam Hussein:
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues.
Osama bin Laden: Ungracious wretch, fit for the mountains
And the barbarous caves, where manners
Never were preached.
Jacques Chirac:
What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?
France:
France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.
Gerhard Schroeder:
This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands.
Hillary Clinton:
A callet of boundless tongue, who late hath
Beat her husband and now baits me.

Many of our military forces, especially the Navy, have been on station in the Gulf region for a long time now. Rear Adm. John Kelly, the Abraham Lincoln battle group commander, had a notable response to a question about when they're coming home:

"Until the ships are given a return date, Kelly said, it's their job to continue with current operations and prepare for a possible war with Iraq. 'We've been away a long time and we'll be away longer if we need to,' Kelly said. 'When the job's done and it's done right, then we're going to go home.' "

The USS Kitty Hawk and its comrades are working hard on our behalf.

"At least 30 warships able to attack Iraq with Tomahawk cruise missiles are now in the area, the admiral leading this aircraft carrier's battle group said Wednesday. Since their arrival in the Gulf, aircraft from the Kitty Hawk have joined those from two other Gulf-based US carriers enforcing a no-fly zone over southern Iraq. US and British aircraft have stepped up attacks in no-fly zones over both the north and south."

Another article provides more info on their mission:

"The United States and Britain have more than doubled the number of air patrols in the 'no fly' zone over southern Iraq this week to keep Iraqi air defenders off guard and mask the start of any war, a senior defense official said Wednesday. Several hundred sorties a day are now being flown over southern Iraq, including F-16 and other attack planes as well as surveillance, refueling and other support aircraft... The increase is meant to preserve an element of surprise for the start of a war, which is expected to unleash a barrage of bombs 10 times as great as in the opening days of the 1991 Gulf War. By establishing an irregular pattern of sorties over the invasion routes in the south, it becomes more difficult for Iraqi air defenses to foresee a shift from air patrols to actual combat."

Thoughtful comments from this weekend's Washington Times:

"President Bush's Wednesday night speech on his vision for the post-war Middle East revealed an American president fully seized of a classic Wilsonian passion to nurture — nay, force — democratic government on a troubled world. It also revealed a president coldly determined to disarm rogue states of their weapons of mass destruction.

"President Bush is not a man for whom words are particularly friendly or an end in themselves; he uses them only for the truth of the matter stated. But he may be our most stubborn, determined and action-oriented president since Andy Jackson. Intellectuals talk breezily about democracy, and then talk about something else. We suspect that having said these words this week, President Bush intends to go about the practical business of trying to implement them. It will be stunning if he succeeds, a bloody mess if he fails, and not many alternatives in between."

AP reports that "the USS Kitty Hawk battle group commander, Rear Adm. Matthew G. Moffit, said Wednesday the biggest task facing U.S. commanders will be coordinating the naval armada gathered in the Mediterranean and the Gulf and the hundreds of thousands of U.S. and British troops on the ground. The Kitty Hawk, based in Yokosuka, Japan, arrived in the northern Gulf last month. More than 130 U.S., British and other nations' ships are now within striking distance of Iraq. Moffit said flight operations were currently concentrating on getting pilots and air crews familiar with new rules and procedures to prepare them for possible war operations."

Mansoor Ijaz, who seems to have deep insider knowledge as a foreign affairs analyst on Fox News, has a terrific new article in National Review Online about the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed by Pakistan's ISI and its meaning for the war on terror.

"...while U.S. signals intelligence and other monitoring equipment were crucial in expanding the scope of the operation and gleaning vital statistics prior to the arrests last Saturday, there was a marked shift inside ISI to employ its cultural expertise and deep knowledge of Pakistan's underground in order to bring down senior al Qaeda leaders.

"KSM's arrest therefore represented an opportunity, if done right, to dismantle the Middle East retaliation infrastructure before launching the war to disarm Saddam. Pentagon planners have long fretted about the cauldrons of fire al Qaeda's Saddam-enabled retaliation cells could unleash on weak Middle East governments if and when the U.S. decided to move against Iraq."

Who is Mansoor Ijaz? I've been curious since noticing that his comments on FNC seem much better informed and original than the usual coterie of reporters and retired military officers (great as they often are). Seems that he is an international financier and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, heavy hitter in sensitive international negotiations, and holds degrees in physics (UVa) and mechanical engineering (MIT). Snappy dresser, too. Keep an eye out for him.

This incisive statement is excerpted from an address by Conrad Black, British newspaper magnate, to the London Centre for Policy Studies.

"The three greatest strategic errors of modern times were Germany's recourse to unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and Stalin's rejection of Roosevelt's and Tuman's offer of alliance and economic assistance in exchange for liberality in Eastern Europe. The German Empire, Japanese imperialism, the Soviet Union, and Russian Communism perished because of these mistakes. Good natured country though it is, provoking the United States beyond a certain point can be mortally hazardous. The international terrorists and their supporters have vastly surpassed that point."

Conrad Black's entire address is available as a 44-page PDF (fairly large print), and well worth reading.

George F. Will discusses Black's comments in the Washington Post and adds the following:

"Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the authors of the fourth great error, the Sept. 11 attacks, may have belatedly understood that danger when, before dawn Saturday, he stood in his underwear, facing the drawn guns of the men who told him America would like to ask him some questions."

'nuff said.

Draw your own conclusions.

"Missile Warhead Found in Alaska: The warhead of a long-range missile test-fired by North Korea was found in the U.S. state of Alaska, a report to the [South Korean] National Assembly revealed yesterday. 'According to a U.S. document, the last piece of a missile warhead fired by North Korea was found in Alaska,' former Japanese foreign minister Taro Nakayama was quoted as saying in the report. 'Washington, as well as Tokyo, has so far underrated Pyongyang's missile capabilities.' " [Note: source site is S. Korean and your browser may suggest a language download. On my computer the site works fine without it, just a few stray characters.]

Senator Tom Daschle: "Is a national missile defense system the best possible use of our defense dollars? We need to see this debate in the larger context of the whole array of threats to our national security. While no priority is greater than protecting our nation from all threats, we have a responsibility to combat those threats the Pentagon tells us are most likely and most immediate. Attack by ballistic missile ranks low among them."

Saddam may not believe the end is really coming. His state-controlled media may reflect his confidence that the Alliance is just bluffing, or it may be just internal PR to stave off a coup. There is an interesting Houston Chronicle article today by Amir Taheri.


"...the Iraqi media are building a fantasy world in which a resurgent Europe, inspired by Saddam Hussein's 'heroic leadership,' will put an end to the U.S. 'quest for global hegemony.' Despite the protests of French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and others opposed to war in Iraq that they do not endorse Saddam's brutal regime, the Iraqi media see it differently. Iraq's media are trying to create the impression that Saddam enjoys worldwide support that cuts across ideological barriers."

Last November, Saddam said he didn't think the West could pull it off:

"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said in a rare interview that he believed the American and British determination to make war on Iraq could collapse under the weight of anti-war sentiment in the two countries. 'Time is in our favor, and we have to buy more time, hoping that the U.S.-British alliance might disintegrate because of ... the pressure of public opinion on American and British streets,' Saddam told the Egyptian weekly Al-Osboa in the interview published Sunday."

The Washington Times provides further evidence of Iraqi support for international terrorism. Opening the Baathist archives is going to be really interesting.

"Islamist terrorists in the southern Philippines who have killed two American hostages in recent years say they are receiving money from Iraqis close to President Saddam Hussein. Hamsiraji Sali, a local commander of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf on the remote southern island of Basilan, says he is getting nearly $20,000 a year from supporters in Iraq. 'It's so we would have something to spend on chemicals for bomb-making and for the movement of our people,' Sali told a reporter this week, renewing earlier claims of support from Iraq."

Two short sentences say it all. Thanks, Wayne Stanton. Everyone compare and contrast with self-proclaimed "human shields" who booked it out of Baghdad this weekend.

"Soldier Wounded in Afghanistan Re-Enlists for Three More Years, saying, 'It's my job. I've got to do it.' The 10th Mountain Division is the military's most deployed unit."

Of all the public nuisances in the world, Madonna has to rank near the top. The childrens' book bandwagon among the celebrity set attracts another aging star. I've tried to imagine these books atracting the attention of kids in our elementary school and then having them go the public library or the Web to see what else she's done. And what has the chairman of Penguin Group been ingesting? Geez.

"Madonna Writes Series of Children's Books: Penguin Group announced Monday that the singer has written five illustrated story books for young readers aged 6 and above... 'Madonna is an artist with a universal appeal and these books will touch children of all backgrounds everywhere in the world,' said chairman and chief executive John Makinson."

Most eyes are fixed on Iraq these days, with nervous sideways glances at the Korean peninsula, but in the long run we may find greater strategic concern with China. Sure, it's modernizing rapidly, which has some benefits as it becomes more integrated with the rest of the world. But the military still plays a very strong role in everything important and they have two millenia of mostly success in international dominance. Interesting little story today about their space program, which is labeled "civil" but is actually tied closely to the military.

"China has revealed further details of its plans to explore the Moon - the first unmanned probe could be launched by 2005, say officials. They also hinted that the motivation for the missions is to mine the Moon's resources... Chinese officials have previously said that some sort of permanent, most likely unmanned, base could be established on the Moon's surface by 2010."

The AP's story on this concludes: "The program has close ties to the military and precise launch dates are never announced in advance."

The Washington Post reports that the "antiwar" left plans to take it to the next level. Glad that security is already high at military facilities. And hope that the authorities will be watching closely since lots of these folks ain't exactly idealistic - many are very hardcore and willing to be violent.

"The people who helped organize the largest worldwide peace demonstration in history last month say they are not through yet. More than 120 activists from 28 countries emerged from an all-day strategy session here this weekend with plans not just to protest a prospective U.S.-led war against Iraq but to prevent it from happening. They want to intensify political pressure on the Bush administration's closest allies -- the leaders of Britain, Italy and Spain -- and force them to withdraw their support, leaving the United States, if it chooses to fight, to go it alone. And they intend to further disrupt war plans with acts of civil disobedience against U.S. military bases, supply depots and transports throughout Europe."

Guess now we know the deal is really getting ready to go down. When the going gets tough, the utopians get, well, going.

"Anti-war 'shields' in Iraq go home: Almost all the first British "human shields" to go to Iraq were on their way home yesterday after deciding that their much-heralded task is now too dangerous. Two red double-decker buses, which symbolized the hopes of anti-war activists when they arrived to a fanfare of publicity two weeks ago, slipped quietly out of Baghdad on the long journey back to Britain, carrying most of the 11 protesters with them. Nine out of the 11 activists decided to pull out after being given an ultimatum by Iraqi officials yesterday to station themselves at targets likely to be bombed in a war or leave the country."

Once again, the unwashed masses demonstrate their acuity compared to the self-appointed elites.

"Polls show U.S. prefers silent stars: Most Americans would prefer that celebrities stick with the artsy stuff and keep politics out of their repertoire. A Fox News poll released Friday found that 24 percent of Americans are interested in hearing what actors and musicians have to say about national affairs. Sixty-eight percent wished the celebrated "would keep their opinions to themselves." The poll asked 900 registered voters and was taken Feb. 25. A new CNN/Gallup poll of 1,003 adults, meanwhile, found that 87 percent did not have their opinions swayed by outspoken celebrities."

William J. Bennett has good ideas on the topic of "Teaching the Virtues" in the Feb. 03 issue of Imprimis -- important ideas for both parents and educators to consider.

"The public schools of this country, which were established principally to provide common moral instruction for a nation of immigrants, were now wondering if this was possible. Many people expressed the concern that we had become so enamored of our economic and material success that we were neglecting more important things... I think the answer regarding how to teach the virtues is pretty straightforward. Aristotle had a good read on it, and modern psychology and other contemporary studies back him up: We teach by habit, we teach by precept, and we teach by example... Of course, this is harder to do than to say. Being a parent and teaching these things is a very rigorous exercise."

Bennett also mentions an historic fact about 9/11 that I had not heard before, and that sends shivers down my spine.

"I was reading an updated transcript a couple of weeks ago in which one of the four men who rushed the cockpit on Flight 93 said to the person on the other end of the phone line, 'We are waiting until we get over a rural area.' They knew what was likely to happen, so they were waiting in order to minimize the death toll. What extraordinary human beings these ordinary Americans turned out to be."

Very interesting series of articles in today's Washington Post outlining the strategy for war in Iraq. Good reading.

"War Plan for Iraq Largely in Place. Quick, Simultaneous Attacks on Ground and From Air Envisioned. After more than a year of intense work, the Bush administration's plan for an assault on Iraq is essentially in place and is based on an unusual approach that envisions simultaneous air and ground operations combining the U.S. advantages in firepower, speed and precision, according to several people familiar with the strategy. Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the chief of U.S. military operations in the Middle East, sat down in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar last week and reviewed the plan with his top Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force and Special Operations commanders. The conclusion of the top secret session, said a U.S. official based in the region, was that everything is ready once President Bush gives the order."

Good coverage of the Houston Rally for America at BlogsofWar.com. Check it out for first-hand field report and good pics.

And in Korea, the promised pro-American rally came off pretty big: "Some 100,000 South Korean citizens rallied in Seoul Saturday to support the U.S. troop presence in the country and condemn North Korea's nuclear ambitions."

Great news from Pakistan today - a key moment in the effort to break Al Qaeda. I suggest that, if necessary, Jack Bauer be assigned to do the interrogation.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States, was arrested Saturday in Pakistan, a senior Pakistan government source told The Associated Press. Mohammed, who is on the FBI's most wanted list, was among three people arrested in Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the official said. U.S. officials regard Mohammed as a key al-Qaida lieutenant and organizer of the terror mission that sent hijacked passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing more than 3,000 people.

Tough news from Turkey today. This country is caught midstream between its medieval roots and modernity, between dictatorship and democracy, between the Middle East and Europe. Now is when a strong, unified example from western Europe would have been helpful. Instead, the French and Germans kicked them in the teeth and made all this harder. Ironic that the eastern Europeans, most of whom were conquered or intimidated in the past by the Turkish Empire, have been supportive.

"Turkey's Parliament Speaker Nullifies Vote to Allow Deployment of 62,000 U.S. Troops: Turkey's parliament speaker nullified the legisature's vote Saturday to allow deployment of 62,000 U.S. combat troops to open a northern front against Iraq, saying a majority of those in the chamber had not voted in favor. The vote was 264-250 with 19 abstentions. Speaker Bulent Arinc said nullified the vote after it was challenged by the opposition. The Turkish constitution demands a majority of those present must vote in favor for a bill to pass. The vote Saturday was four short of a simple majority. Arinc closed parliament after the vote until Tuesday.The bill's rejection is likely to seriously increase tensions with the United States which had been expecting a positive vote.The motion would have empowered the government to authorize the basing of up to 62,000 troops, 255 warplanes and 65 helicopters."