UPDATED - ColdType

US war toll rises to 75
EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
“APRIL 5 – The number of U.S. service members
killed in action since the war began March 20
stands at 75, U.S. officials said Saturday. Seven
service members had been captured, seven were
missing and 154 had been wounded.”
Where are the Iraq defenses?
ALSO confusing is just what the Iraqis are doing
and not doing to defend Baghdad. Erudite commentator
George Will, who usually claims to
know everything about everything, admitted to
doubts and confusion on ABC Sunday. (He also
approvingly read us a quote from Michael Kelly
urging pundits on TV to shut up. Clearly he didn’t
realize that he is among the most offensive of
the chattering classes.) So what is happening?
During the Vietnam War analysts used to say
that the US was playing the western game of
chess while the Vietnamese were playing the
Asian game of GO. What goeth on?
Mark Crispin Miller passes along a provocative
analysis by Mark Gery, an independent Iraq analyst
of the non-armchair-general variety. He
writes: “Saddam and most of the Republican
Guard will probably lay low in Baghdad and elsewhere
and let the Fedayeen and other paramilitary
units harass us as we try to move about the
city. (We have yet to secure even one major city
in Iraq). The Guards have already discarded
their combat uniforms and apparently dispersed
into several locales.
“At some point, when temps near 100 and the
sandstorms begin again, thousands of Iraqi
troops now in hiding will strike in mass at a few
choke points in our supply lines, which extend all
178
the way into Kuwait. They may even still blow
the bridges over the rivers. Our forces will
become isolated from each other, and within a
few weeks will be short on water, food, and gasoline.
Vehicles and men will have to come into
Iraqi cities for clean water, and again be subject
to commando attack. In short, weather and logistics
will win the war for Saddam.”
Dubya: “Good”
“MR. BUSH smiled a moment at the latest example
of Mr. Rumsfeld’s brazenness, recalled the
aide. Then he said one word – ‘Good’ – and went
back to work,” reports the Independent.
“It was a small but telling moment on the sidelines
of the war. For a year now, the president
and many in his team have privately described
the confrontation with Saddam Hussein as something
of a demonstration conflict, an experiment
in forcible disarmament. It is also the first war
conducted under a new national security strategy,
which explicitly calls for intervening before
a potential enemy can strike.”
This war is also a selling exercise – a way to
showcase and field-test US weaponry. During the
Gulf War, Guy Trebay called CNN a “home shopping
channel” for military recruitment officers
who are watching with checkbooks at the ready. It
is happening again. Sir Timothy Garden, a British
expert wrote about this in March in The Guardian:
“With war seemingly inevitable, weapon designers
will be looking forward to another opportunity
for field-testing new products.”
Media hatred
AS for the media war being fought alongside the