Wednesday, March 26, 2003

PERMALINK

Counterattack? As far as I can tell from reading CNN and the excellent running reports from Sean-Paul Kelley at agonist.org, it seems there are currently two Iraqi counterattacks going on simultaneously: One south of Baghdad, as the Republican Guard sends a column of (reportedly) 1000 armored vehicles toward Najaf, on what CNN calls a "collision course" with U.S. forces; the other south of Basra, as another force of Iraqi tanks moves south toward the port of Umm Qasr and engages the British units there. Now, it's quite possible that U.S. and British forces will easily repel these counterattacks, and that they are just what the U.S. command wants -- to draw out Iraqi units and fight them in the open rather than tangle with them in the cities. That said, from my armchair here in California this sure looks like a coordinated counteroffensive. No one in the media seems to be willing to give it that name. Or have I just missed it? POSTCRIPT: CNN now reports the 1000-armored-vehicle column South of Baghdad report was "inaccurate intelligence." The fog of war swirls... comment [] 3:15:47 PM | permalink

This war brought to you by... You are invading oil-rich Iraq, and much of the world thinks -- rightly or wrongly -- you are doing it because you want the country's oil. You deny this vehemently. Yet when your troops name their "forward operating bases," they choose the names Exxon and Shell. I'm not making this up. Those are the names of the 101st Airborne's helicopter bases in Iraq, according to this New York Times report. The Pentagon is apparently explaining that these camps are refueling bases, and that justifies the naming. I dunno. This may be true. But it doesn't help us. The Bush administration has been given lots of points for its handling of this war's PR, but this looks like a ludicrously stupid blunder. comment [] 10:49:25 AM | permalink