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.