The deciding moment of the war.

Yeah, I saw that as well. All too unclear a description.

Misjudged or maybe misrepresented?

WARNING: Images of mutilated Iraqi war vicitms on Al Jazeera

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/5472430.htm

The army is pissed at Rumfield's meddling, he was expecting the Iraqis to cave, this has caused many headaches.

"Misjudged or maybe misrepresented?"

Misjudged. This war has been the product of a cost/benefit calculation. If the Iraqis remain hostile even after Saddam has gone - resulting in need for a larger/more long-term occupying force -BushCo will have got the calculation badly wrong, probably with no-second-term-for-junior results.

I'm not in the least surprised -- especially since Rumsfeld has been rubbing the brass the wrong way since he took over the job. Something like this, if it gets worse, could easily be the grounds for his getting canned. Bush may find himself in the uncomfortable position of balancing military anger against support of one of his core team members, and pushing for the team member in case of catastrophe would be a major mistake politically (on top of all the rest, of course).

On another note... has anyone seen the Sun? My mother reads the stupid thing, for shame, and she was reading some of the crap they've been printing yesterday. Truly nauseating. They evidently ambused some French troops docked over here and showered them in white feathers... how pathetic can you get? And yet, I fear there are lots of people who read this shit and take it perfectly seriously.

Today, she was giving me highlights of that imbecile Littlejohn's column. He, of course, equates anti-war sentiment with *support* of Saddam. Freedom of speech has its pitfalls...

Turkey moves into the iraqi north to prevent a kurdish uprising whilst the shia in the south set up an iranian style islamic revolutionary government. An iraqi civli watr ensues that is in effect a proxy war between turkey, iran, syria the kurds and the islamists. The price of oil goes through the roof, bush's friends get fat. The bush junta wins a second term after another massive terrorist attack, on a we were right all along ticket.

Worst case scenario, I don't expect it to happen, but I'm not sure what I do expect to happen.

If Cheney were to croak Bush could nominate Powell (or anyone else he wants); I can't picture Congress resisting Powell.

"Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress."

With the upgrade patch download, it actually reads:

"Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate Gerry Ford who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress. Should Gerry Ford be the incumbent vice president at the time of the vacancy in the office of the vice president, Gerry Ford will be nominated for said office, and will accept. A majority vote of both Houses of Congress will impell Betty Ford to consume three manhattans and 14 vallium."

man all this talk makes me want to go put some 'bombs on target' bigtime (while listening to 'Corona' by the minutemen)

Which gives us ~20 years until the archduke croaks.

I am still waiting for more news on SARS - I mean, doesn't this sound like something realy nasty that we should all be feeling a bit concerned about?

This war looks like its going to be a lot more traditional than Rumsfeld thought. Its going to be about battles over farmland, over villages and towns and streets and buildings and the iraqis are going to fight dirty, they are going to pop up in civillian clothes, hide their artillery in towns, next to schools and hospitals. They are going to exploit every weakness they have discovered in the US/UK forces and tactics. Saddam is now largely irrelavent, even if the iraqis won now there's probably be a civil war to topple him. The war is holding up his government now just as the last 12 years of sanctions and humiliations have done.

'There's a scene in "Bowling for Columbine" where comedian Chris Rock is caught mid-act on an old HBO special trying to think through the dilemma presented by a superficial reading of the Second Amendment and the predisposition of some Americans to shoot first and ask questions later.

'"Bullets aren't expensive enough," he shouts with exquisite common sense. If it were up to him, bullets would cost $5,000 apiece. That way, a would-be killer would have to think twice before shooting someone. Gun violence would have to be something a budget could accommodate.'

from http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20021101tony3.asp

What a fucking retard. This is the kind of brains it takes to win a Pulitzer?

It's guys like Arnett that throw gas on the fire of "liberal bias."

the war is going exactly according to plan. anyone who says otherwise is a traitor and must be exterminated.

1) that no coup has been attempted yet - they way i imagine it is via a defecting strongman who controls a big chunk of the Repub Guard "mindshare" and is like "i know where Sadaam is and i have lots of troops and guns, let's do this thing, give me Najaf"

2) no terrorist action against the West so far

I still am surprised how often this gets thrown around as an insult.

Cross yer fingers. The US claims to have uncovered two sleeper cells planning some problems, but then again, they would say that.

as for the no coup - given the levels of Iraqi resistance, any clown who takes the job of being US-UK's bootboy ruler of Vichy Iraq is going to be completely reliant on US-UK arms to remain in power (or even alive). anyone who takes that job will be signing their death warrant.

We are fighting against terrorists
All of our enemies are terrorists
Therefore I am justified to attack my enemies

Brilliant logic.

n : the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments

---Sounds like it was terrorism to me, but then so does the US invasion of Iraq.

The problem, of course, with "what we all know about the war" is that "we" don't all know the same things. Arnett's reporting was loaded with conjecture.

According to CNN, during the Sunday interview, Arnett also said that Iraq had given him and other reporters a "degree of freedom which we appreciate." Iraq has expelled several journalists, including CNN's Baghdad team, and apparently has imprisoned two journalists from the New York newspaper Newsday. What sort of freedom was Arnett referring to?

You think his judgment was good? You think his analysis was good? Do tell us, Nicole.

From now on I will refer to Arnett's judgment as fucking moronic.

The moment has been decided, and it will be a couple of weeks at least before we attack Baghdad. And its seriously looking like Syria might be drawn into the war. Syria's foreign minister said they would like Iraq to win the war, and now CNN is saying that Syria is resupplying Iraq. Weeeeeee!!! WWIII!

Army Says U.S. Troops Killed 7 Iraqi Women and Children
By BERNARD WEINRAUB

WITH V CORPS HEADQUARTERS NEAR THE KUWAIT BORDER, March 31 - The Army announced tonight that seven women and children were killed this afternoon by American soldiers after a vehicle in which they were riding failed to stop after troops waved them down and fired warning shorts.

The Army said a full investigation of the incident was under way.

It was the first known incident since the start of the war of Iraqi civilians dying as direct result of American gunfire.

In the aftermath of the attack on March 29, when four soldiers of the Third Infantry Division were killed in a a car bomb explosion at a unit check point, the United States Military has warned troops in Iraq and Kuwait of possible terrorist acts against soldiers and marines, including suicide bombers. Soldiers have been especially warned to be careful at checkpoints as cars approach them.

The Army said that at 4:30 p.m. local time, a civilian vehicle approached a military checkpoint near the town of An Najaf on Route 9, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.

The incident involved soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is bearing the brunt of the Army's ground war.

The Army said soldiers at the checkpoint motioned for the vehicle to stop but were ignored. The soldiers then fired warning shots, which was also ignored by the driver, the Army said.

The soldiers then fired shots into the engine of the vehicle, ``but the vehicle kept moving toward the checkpoint,'' the Army said.

``Finally, as a last resort, the soldiers fired into the passenger compartment of the vehicle,'' the Army statement said.

The Army said that upon further investigation, it was determined that 13 women and children were in the vehicle. Seven of the occupants were killed, two were wounded and four were unharmed, the Army said.

No other details were immediately available.

I don't think this follows; anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of the history of the Vietnam conflict would more than likely not agree with you. Of course, neither of us knows this minute what the facts truly are, or even the manner in which this story broke. I was merely speculating on what I *imagine* (key word: imagine) happened, based on what little I've read about the incident.

I don't think that either the Iraqi government or the U.S. government are out to "eradicate the Iraqi people." Perhaps "subdue" or "sublimate" or "oppress," but not "eradicate."

http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~jasonlee/dontstealme.gif

(Feel free to overreact and take that personally)

Wolfowitz by all accounts would be far worse than rumsfeld. He appears to be even more gung ho. as far a syria wading in I think that they would wait until the americans were well and truly bogged down and even then its still only 50:50. More than likely it would happen if Assad felt pressure from his people and even then he'd have to be fairly sure that he'd win and that Israel wouldn't attack him from behind.

Another interesting point is the differences between the US and UK forces handle the civilian population. UK troops place much more emphasis on foot patrols even though they make troops more vulnerable. Soldiers are menacing but even more so wearing sunglasses and behind the wheel of a Hum Vee. I worries me that british troops may be left as the peacekeeping force long after the US troops have left because they are seen as so much more experienced and besides the current doctrine is that 'peacekeeping is for wimps'.

Ten Iraqis Killed at U.S. Checkpoint

By William Branigin
Washington Post Foreign Service

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

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

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

"Cease fire!" Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he peered into his binoculars from the intersection on Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!"

So it was that on a warm, hazy day in central Iraq, the fog of war descended on Bravo Company.

Fifteen Iraqi civilians were packed inside the Toyota, it turned out, along with as many of their possessions as the jammed vehicle could hold. Ten of them, including five children who appeared to be under 5 years old, were killed on the spot when the high-explosive rounds slammed into their target, Johnson's company reported. Of the five others, one man was so severely injured that medics said he was not expected to live.

"It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I hope I never see it again," Sgt. Mario Manzano, 26, an Army medic with Bravo Company of the division's 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, said later in an interview. He said one of the wounded women sat in the vehicle holding the mangled bodies of two of her children. "She didn't want to get out of the car," he said.

The tragedy cast a pall over the company as it sat in positions it occupied Sunday on this key stretch of Highway 9 at the intersection of a road leading to the town of Hilla, about 14 miles to the east, near the Euphrates River. The Toyota was coming from that direction when it was fired on.

Dealing with the gruesome scene was a new experience for many of the U.S. soldiers deployed here, and they debated how the tragedy could have been avoided. Several said they accepted the platoon leader's explanation to Johnson on the military radio that he had, in fact, fired two warning shots, but that the driver failed to stop. And everybody was edgy, they realized, since four U.S. soldiers were blown up by a suicide bomber Saturday at a checkpoint much like theirs, only 20 miles to the south.

On a day of sporadic fighting on the roads and in the farms and wooded areas around the intersection, the soldiers of Bravo Company had their own reasons to be edgy. The Bradley of the 3rd Battalion's operations officer, Maj. Roger Shuck, was fired on with a rocket-propelled grenade a couple of miles south of Karbala. No one in the vehicle was seriously injured, but Shuck had difficulty breathing afterward and had to be treated with oxygen, medics said.

That happened after a column of M1 Abrams tanks headed north to Karbala in the early afternoon and returned a couple of hours later. Throughout the day, Iraqis lobbed periodic mortar volleys at the U.S. troops, and Iraqi militiamen and soldiers tried to penetrate the U.S. lines. Later, U.S. multiple-launcher vehicles fired rockets to try to take out the mortar batteries as AH-64 Apache helicopters swooped low over the arid terrain in search of other enemy gun emplacements.

It was in the late afternoon, after this day defending their positions, that the men of Bravo Company saw the blue Toyota coming down the road and reacted. After the shooting, U.S. medics evacuated survivors to U.S. lines south of here. One woman escaped without a scratch. Another, who had superficial head wounds, was flown by helicopter to a U.S. field hospital when it was learned she was pregnant.

Lt. Col. Stephen Twitty, the 3rd Battalion commander, gave permission for three of the survivors to return to the vehicle and recover the bodies of their loved ones. Medics gave the group 10 body bags. U.S. officials offered an unspecified amount of money to compensate them.

"They wanted to bury them before the dogs got to them," said Cpl. Brian Truenow, 28, of Townsend, Mass.

Pentagon officials in Washington had no immediate comment on the incident.

To try to prevent a recurrence, Johnson ordered that signs be posted in Arabic to warn people to stop well short of the Bradleys guarding the eastern approach to the intersection. Before they could be erected, 10 people carrying white flags walked down the same road. They included seven children, an old man, a woman and a boy in his teens.

"Tell them to go away," Johnson ordered. But he reconsidered when told that the family claimed its house had been blown up and that they were trying to reach the home of relatives in a safer area.

"They look like they pose no threat at this time," one of the Bradley platoons radioed.

Johnson, a former Army Ranger who parachuted into Panama in 1989, fought in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and rose through the ranks, relented. He ordered his troops to tell the old man that the group could walk around the Bradleys.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61229-2003Mar31.html