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29. mars 2003
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Whose rockets were that?
"British intelligence sources say Iraq has replaced the commander of air defence forces after Iraqi surface-to-air missiles, aimed at Western warplanes, had missed and fallen back on the Iraqi capital." (BBC News)
11:41:01 PM 
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Who predicted a short war, anyway?
As it is becoming more and more likely that this will be a tough war after all, it's time to look back at who predicted what. Wisely, most politicians and military expressed some words of caution that were lost in the media enthusiasm. Some, however, grossly misread the situation, as this overview in the UK's Daily Telegraph demonstrates.
Richard Perle, the arch-hawk who many see as a chief architect behind the aggressive strategy, does not look good in the light of hindsight. For example, he told NBC television:
There may be pockets of resistance, but very few Iraqis are going to fight to defend Saddam Hussein.
Ken Adelman predicted the attack would be a "cakewalk," and Dick Cheney (where is he anyway?) was optimistic in saying "I don't think it would be that tough a fight," while surely including a disclaimer.
While British politicians and military were more careful on the whole, Spokesman for the British forces Captain Al Lockwood, is on record saying
If I were a betting man, which I'm not, we will be in Baghdad hopefully in the next three or four days.
Kind of explains why he is not a betting man, doesn't it?
11:39:05 AM
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Cheney's daughter not going to Iraq
Rumours started circulating a few days ago that US Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter Elisabeth was on her way to Iraq to become a human shield. According to the the radio station Echo of Russia, daddy was rushing to Jordan to dissuade her.
When I saw the story, I had one look at the it, concluded that this smells like the making of a urban legend, and another look at the source, and decided it looked a bit too phony. And of course it isn't true, no matter how beautiful the irony would have been if it was (that is a good sign a story is not true, in fact).
Both daughters, Elisabeth and Mary, are living their lives in the US with no Middle East travel plans. They aren't even in their father's infamous undisclosed location. Has anyone seen him lately, anyway?
11:26:55 AM
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Uffda!
Like all European countries, Norway had the chance to get rid of its dregs when the American frontier called, and emigrants crossed the Atlantic in droves to begin a new life in the land of milk & honey.
I have always wondered why, after finally escaping from the rain and harsh winters of Norway, they preferred settling in places like Minnesota and Washington state, places famous for having essentially the same crappy weather we suffer under here.
No wonder the Norwegian immigrants became the butts of all sort of jokes, most famously, the Ola & Lena jokes. As we can see, they still haven't learned proper English, a problem they share with everybody else over there.
PS: Uffda is still a common Norwegian expression, essentially used as an exclamation like "ouch!" or "shit!"
10:43:03 AM
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The flaws in the grand plan of American dominance
While the fear of WMDs was certainly part of the rationale for a war against Iraq, it was not the full story. As is well known, the current war is part of a grand plan devised by leading neocons to erode terrorism by replacing corrupt Middle East regimes with decent democracies.
If the poverty and corruption in the Middle East are reduced, so will the hatred of America subside, they argue. And, at any rate, if they fail, US military power should be able to keep the crazies at bay. Joshua Micah Marshall, in a Washington Monthly article, points to some dangers and flaws in this plan. What is perhaps the most dangerous part is that the current administration has never really been too upfront about this plan, and it's certainly never been presented to the American people. To the neocons, deception is a means justified by the ends.
10:01:48 AM
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British forces reported to have saved civilians from Iraqi militia
Gethin Chamberlain is reporting an incident where 1,000 Iraqi civilians ran out of Basra, coming under fire from Saddam's militia forces. British forces answered the fire, and rescued the fleeting civilians.
While skepticism should be the order of the day in dealing with such reports, this appears to be well supported by the evidence. It is worth noting that the Guardian isn't exactly a pro-war newspaper. At least it wasn't before British troops were engaged.
8:33:36 AM
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US orders 4-6 day "operational pause"
"U.S. commanders have ordered a pause of between four to six days in a northwards push toward Baghdad because of supply shortages and stiff Iraqi resistance, U.S. military officers said on Saturday." (Reuters)
Time to fess up, Rumsfeld. The war is not going according to plan. Scrapping the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force was the first mistake. Naively thinking Iraqis were just Americans who hadn't realized it yet was the second.
6:39:13 AM
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Missile hitting Kuwait City might have been American
Kuwaiti officials examining the rubble from the davastated shopping mall in Kuwait City has found evidence suggesting it was an errant US cruise missile.
Americans were never very good at geography anyway.
4:47:32 AM
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Taliban wants to retake Afghanistan
In a rare interview with the Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah, he says that the growing resentment with Americans in Afghanistan makes this the right time for the extremist movement to throw out the 'occupants' and reclaim the country.
4:23:14 AM
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Not sure what I think of that headline
"The Supreme Court Tries Sodomy" (Slate)
The article is well worth a read.
3:59:26 AM
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Suspected inside trader claims to be time traveller
The mysterious Andrew Carlssin started investing on Wall Street was an initial $800, and after only two weeks his portfolio was worth $350 million. To nobody's surprise, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) got curious and they dragged him away in handcuffs to reveal his secrets.
It did raise a few eyebrows in the SEC when Carlssin "confessed" to being a time traveller from the year 2256, coming here to take advantage of his knowledge of past events.
It's not entirely surprising that the SEC doesn't buy the story, but they had to confess that
"No one can find any record of any Andrew Carlssin existing anywhere before December 2002."
You had me wondering there...
Future knowledge or not, I just can't believe anyone can increase $800 to $350 million in two weeks. Sure this story wasn't supposed to be posted on April 1st?
3:20:21 AM
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Blame France
Remember the hilarious South Park song "Blame Canada"? It's getting close to reality, but the current theme is surely "blame France."
Micahel Ledeen argues that the reason Turkey chose to deny US forces to pass through their territory was pressure, or even blackmail, from France and Germany.
The French and German governments informed the Turkish opposition parties that if they voted to help the Coalition war effort, Turkey would be locked out of Europe for a generation. As one Turkish leader put it, "there were no promises, only threats."
One can describe this behavior on the part of our erstwhile Old Europe allies only as a deliberate act of sabotage against America in time of war.
Those are fighting words.
2:43:18 AM
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It's really going mainstream
Gary Hart (remember him?) has launched his own weblog.
2:34:50 AM
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Saddam digitally signs email of unconditional surrender
Rob Rosenberger of Virus Myths can't help making a swipe at the essentially everyone, inspired by a CNN headline
In other words -- the war is over! Iraqi soldiers have already started to lay down their keyboards as they emerge from Internet cafés, their hands raised above their heads in the classic French position.
You read it there first....
2:30:11 AM
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Haliburton: win some, lose some
A lot has been made about the relationship between vice president Cheney and the company where he was a CEO, Haliburton. Recently, Kellogg Brown & Root, a Haliburton unit, was awarded a contract from the Army Corps of Engineers, without other companies being allowed to bid on it. Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Ca) wednesday sent a letter to the army asking why this contract was not open to competition.
However, in a recent development, Haliburton lost out on a contract for a massive U.S. government contract for reconstruction in Iraq. It is unclear whether they are out of the contract for business reasons or because of the political fallout of awarding such a huge contract to a business that has close ties to the administration.
2:16:50 AM
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Blix quits
Hans Blix has no plans to continue as UN chief weapons inspector when his contract with the UN expires in June. Blix is 74 years old; having been dragged out of retirement for a position where the world hung on to his every word for a few very nervous months.
1:13:14 AM
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Half of what you see, none of what you hear
As I am looking back at my postings about the Iraq war, I notice how often I post, based on some news item, a new development in the war, just to post a few hours later that the first report remained unconfirmed at best, totally bogus at worst.
Not only is coalition propaganda as shamelessly dishonest, if not more so, than what comes from Saddam's information minister, we are also getting a closer view than any audience in war history of the chaos that is war. War is about deception, feints and camouflage. Two sides doing their best to deceive each other results in the infamous 'fog of war.' Add the logistical nightmare of organising hundreds of thousands of men and their equipment, and the reality of having all those scared people running around with deadly equipment, and what we have is sheer unimaginable chaos.
That is what the media and the warblogs alike report: total chaos thinly disguised as a coordinated campaign.
1:01:07 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.04.2003; 01:34:51.
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