UPDATED - ColdType

media and in the media can be ignored much
longer. ●
MARCH 31: ONWARD,
CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS
ANYONE remember that anthem about praising
the lord and passing the ammunition? As Muslims
praise their most Merciful and Beneficent
God, “whom we forever thank,” American soldiers
are being advised to praise HE who praises
the most holy every time we see Him, to the tune
of “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” In fact, yesterday
was “pray for the President day” in Iraq, a
fact I saw reported on nowhere on TV.
ABC is reporting on its web site that “U.S. soldiers
in Iraq are being asked to pray for President
George W. Bush. Thousands of marines
have been given a pamphlet called “A Christian’s
Duty,” a mini-prayer book which includes a tearout
section to be mailed to the White House
pledging the soldier who sends it in has been
praying for Bush.
In touch
EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
“I HAVE committed to pray for you, your family,
your staff and our troops during this time of
uncertainty and tumult. May God’s peace be
your guide,” says the pledge, according to a journalist
embedded with coalition forces. The pamphlet,
produced by a group called In Touch Ministries,
offers a daily prayer to be made for the
U.S. President, a born-again Christian who likes
to invoke his God in speeches.
I’ll bet Christian Broadcasting is heavily
136
reporting on this angle of the story. Actually, The
New York Times did mention yesterday that the
war itself was hatched with evangelic passion.
The foregone decision to go to war was made in
a formal way, by a President conscious of the history
of the moment, in the Situation Room on the
morning of March 19. With his closest advisers
surrounding him, Mr. Bush spoke to Gen. Franks
and the other commanders in the field by videoconference
and asked each if they had everything
they needed to win. Then the president
gave the order, an administration official said,
concluding with, “May God bless the troops.”
“May God bless America,” Gen. Franks replied,
as Mr. Powell, the chairman of the joint chiefs during
the first Gulf War, reached out and lightly
touched the President’s hand, said a senior
administration official who recounted the scene,
“because he’s been on the battlefield before.”
Hersh roasts Rummy
THAT battlefield remains contested, with U.S. TV
focusing on the debate over whether more
troops are needed, while the administration
regurgitates the mantra that we are on plan.
How far we have come from the days of Vietnam
when the press challenged the escalation of
troop levels. Now the armchair generals on the
Sunday talk shows call for more, more and more.
Seymour Hersh says that the problem is not with
the warriors but with their boss, the Don of
Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld.
He writes: “As the ground campaign against
Saddam Hussein faltered last week, with attenuated
supply lines and a lack of immediate reinforcements,
there was anger in the Pentagon.
Several senior war planners complained to me in