CUT THEM OUT AND COLLECT THE SET: For some sort of record, we’re playing catch-up with the War Email Alert service:
30-3-03 21.22 BST Three US troops killed when their helicopter crashes in southern Iraq - Pentagon says there is no indication it was the result of direct hostile fire.
31-3-03 22.17 US troops kill seven Iraqi women and children after their car refuses to stop at a checkpoint near Najaf
1-4-03 15.47 At least 11 members of one family killed in coalition air strike on Hilla, south of Baghdad.
2-4-03 00.37 Coalition forces have rescued an American prisoner of war in Iraq, the US military says.
3-4-03 02.02 A US Black Hawk helicopter has been shot down near Karbala killing seven of the 11 soldiers on board, the Pentagon announces.
03.07 The US military says some of its units are now less than 20 miles (32 kilometres) from Baghdad, reports the BBC's Gavin Hewitt, who is with the US 3rd Infantry advancing on the Iraqi capital.
09.32 US military officials say advanced units are taking up positions outside Baghdad international airport
17.22 Electricity is down in most of Baghdad for first time in war, as explosions are heard on the city outskirts
19.08 US forces attacking Baghdad's Saddam International Airport, witnesses say.
4-4-03 03.32American forces say they have gained complete control of Baghdad Airport.
11.53 Three coalition soldiers die after a car explodes near a coalition checkpoint northwest of Baghdad in what US Central Command believes to be a suicide attack.
16.03 Saddam Hussein has appeared on Iraqi television calling on the people of Baghdad to resist the enemy.
18.07 Iraqi TV shows footage of what it says is Saddam Hussein being mobbed by cheering crowds in Baghdad on Friday.
5-4-03 05.32 Up eight US tanks move into the southern outskirts of Baghdad on a reconnaissance mission, about 12km (seven miles) from the centre, the nearest land advance into the capital.
07.57 Substantial numbers of coalition troops are moving into Baghdad, the US military says.
13.32 Iraqi state television broadcasts a message from President Saddam Hussein urging the Iraqi people to "step up attacks on the invading forces".
17.52 Iraqi Republican Guard units around Baghdad have been crippled as an organized force,US Lieutenant General Michael Moseley says.
What's quite interesting here - and the reason why we sort of got out the habit - is that the start of the week saw the number of developments that the BBC thought worthy of sharing had almost stopped. At the same time, Sky One started to find space on the its ticker for non-war stuff and News 24 allowed the odd bit of Sports and Business programming to sneak back amongst the never ending war-o-rama.

 
THIRTEEN MINUTES LATE - UNEXPLODED BOMBLETS ON THE LINE AT EALING: Seriously, the US Defense Department are now describing the Coalition Forces as being within commuting distance of Baghdad. Presumably their main concern is avoiding being beaten back to "a day trip's distance from" or "within an overnight Sleeper journey". Let's not point out that B52 bombers have been leaving England, flying over to Baghdad, shocking and awing, and getting back the same shift and - as such - the US have always been in commuting distance of Baghdad.

 
IT'S NOT OVER 'TIL THE FAT LADY IS TOLD IT IS: We've had the delightful re-positioning of the English langauge a lot in this war - for example, in the way an airport can be said to be "taken" despite the Coalition not controlling the access road and possibly not even holding the terminal building. (So, that's the building where they unpack the little trays of food and a baggage caroussel in American hands, is it?) But the US have just raised the stakes - the US plan to just say they've won at a point of their determining, without bothering over whether Saddam's surrendered or not. This is quite a handy way of defining a finish to a war - it's worked in Afghanistan where most of the world seems to have accepted that the US have won even though the people who they were fighting against have never surrendered, been captured or even found. In fact, it makes you wonder why Bush hasn't already declared victory in the struggle. If you're not looking for a surrender, why bother waiting?

 
THE FUG OF WAR: After all that about how Private Lynch had been shot and stabbed, her father points out that, actually there weren't any wounds of that sort on her body at all. Hmmmm.

 
FREEDOM IS JUST A SONG BY WHAM: One of the popular things the bomb 'em all brigade think is clever to say to peace protesters is "At least you're free to protest here; if you tried that in Iraq you'd be taken away in the middle of the night." Besides being meaningless and avoiding the issue, it might not even be true in Oregon much longer, as new legislation attempts to treat prostest groups as terrorists and throw them in jail. [Thanks to Kellie for the link]

 
A NICE IDEA WHILE IT LASTED: Belguim has given in to bullying by World Leaders afraid they might be asked to explain themselves in a court of law tightened up its war crimes law ("tightened up its war crimes law") and changed the rules for bringing people to justice for crimes committed elsewhere - now all such actions will have to be approved by a special prosecutor before they'll be allowed to proceed. The change in the rules has been made retrospective, too, so that's Ariel Sharon off the hook.
One piece of warming balm: the BBC report mentions "former US President George W Bush" - a sign either that they've muddled up father and son, or else that he's been booted out of power. We hope its the latter.

 
NOTHING TO DO WITH EDITORIAL CONTENT. OF COURSE: Israeli cable operators drop BBC World, purely on commercial grounds. Of course.

 
AT LAST, AN ANTI-WAR POSITION FOR THE AMERICAN RIGHT: Yesterday, somewhere in the morass of news, there was an interview with a gynocologist in an Iraqi hospital who added some 'victims of war' that might have been missed out of the calculations. Apparently, the number of abortions being requested in Iraq has shot up; and the number of women spontaneously aborting - usually in response to events like the bombing of their neighbourhood - has doubled since the War started. Generally, we're pro-Abortion Rights here, but if some of those US anti-abortion campaigners did want to hold some sort of march to protect the unborn of Iraq, we might consider signing up for it.

 
EBAY - THEY'RE THE ENEMY: You know how when the rules to protect us against terrorists were being slapped down firmly, us wet liberals were warning that we'd wake up one morning and find their vaguely worded clauses tripping everybody up? Want an example of that in action? How about Federal Prosecutors wanting to make PayPal pay fines. What bit of terrorism had Ebay's online settlement been supporting? Erm... nothing, actually, but hey - the legislation is worded to allow Missouri to send what amounts to a blackmailing demand for cash because PayPal had accepted money on behalf of online gambling places and, as such, had been "laundering" cash from "illegal" activities.

 
THE NOT-QUITE FINISHED WAR: In the Evening Standard last week, Andrew Neil was bleating on about how people who suggest the war might not be going to plan are falling into the same trap that the doubters against Afghanistanian Victory were. His point might have been a bit more forceful (i) had not even the White House suggested that the Afghan conflict could be long, drawn out and messy and (ii) if any of the aims of that war had actually been achieved - The Taliban are still at large; large swathes of the country are still run by Warlords; Bin Laden may well have not even been there in the first place and certainly wasn't detained and brought to justice; the bits of the country 'freed' are only marginally less repressed than they were and now it's clear that the US army hasn't even managed to make its own positions secure, what with country being the way it is and all. When did anyone say they'd finished there?

 
WE CAN CENSOR OURSELVES, THANK YOU: Warners photoshop peace sign out of movie poster because, you know, it would be inappropriate not to do so, don't you think?

 
DROPPING OUT THE NEWS SKY: We were a bit pissed off that we were able to go to bed one night with the news leading on a hijacking of a Turkish plane, only for the story to have been dropped completely by the time we woke up – presumably because it turned out to not be Iraq War motivated after all – the 'hijacker' had been having problems with his family. Yet, surely, this was linked to that there War on Terror – if only because this was the second time in a month a plane had been taken over in Turkey by a man using candles, and the bloke had managed to get into the cockpit of the plane this time. Reports when the plane landed at Athens said he'd demanded to be flown on to Berlin – now, I'm no criminal mastermind, but I can see a way in which people in Europe might be at a very serious risk of having Jumbo Jet driven into their soft heads if something isn't done about tightening up security down at Turkish airports. Maybe the Bush administration should be linking its massive bribe for the government to tightening up of procedures down at the check-in desk?

 
OH, JULIE...: Julie Burchillhas returned to the subject of the war, or at least the opposition to it. I know I shouldn't get frustrated with Burchill - journalistically, it's on a par with writing a letter to a soap character like they were a real person - but sometimes you just have to do something slightly more constructive than banging your head on the floor until it all goes away.
The start is some ill-considered bollocks about how mental illness - unless caused by chemical imbalance or as a result of being abused as a child - is just self-obsession (if something bad happens to you after you're 18, then you should pull yourself together, I guess); in the same way - aha - that campaigning against the war is.
I've always thought that the last place you'd see the vanity of depression in action would be on a protest march, especially one against war in a foreign country, [Really? When have you thought that, Julie?] but I do believe that many of the anti-war antics currently taking place are totally egotistical. Those who demonstrated against US aggression in Vietnam and Cuba did so because they believed that those people should have more freedom, not less. But does the most hardened peacenik really believe that Iraqis currently enjoy more liberty and delight than they would if Saddam were brought down?
Hold up a second... actually, the anti-Vietnam war marches were almost identical in their point of view - the people of a foreign country shouldn't have America bomb a decision into them. Of course, Stalin's Bitch Julie presumably wouldn't want anyone to suggest that the US attack on communism in Havana and Hanoi was motivated by the same principles that have led Bush to declare time to unleash hell on Baghdad, but in all three instances, the US would argue they're the ones offering freedom in the face of a one-party state and repression, surely?
If so, fair enough; if not, then they are marching about one thing - themselves. That's why so many luvvies are involved; this is simply showing off on a grand scale.
Erm... except showing off is surely tricky to do if you're in a crowd of one million or so? It's virtually impossible to show off in such a large crowd.
I've just heard a snippet of the most disgustingly me-me-me anti-war advert by Susan Sarandon, in which she intones, "Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags, and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know - what did Iraq do to us?" Well, if you mean what did Saddam do to America The Beautiful, not an awful lot - but to millions of his own people, torture and murder for a start. Don't they count?
Oddly, Julie, they didn't two years ago. And wasn't the point of the war about removing the threat from Saddam and his Weapons of Mass Destruction? Saddam's been a brutal wanker for nearly two decades. The war has come dressed up as a response to a direct threat. That, sweetcakes, is why the main news source for Americans has got 'War on Terror' break bumpers.
Surely this is the most self-obsessed anti-war protest ever. NOT IN MY NAME! That's the giveaway. Who gives a suff about their wet, white, western names? See how they write them so solemnly in a list on the bottom of the letters they send to the papers. And the ones that add their brats' names are the worst - a grotesque spin on Baby On Board, except they think that this gives them extra humanity points not just on the motorway, but in the whole wide weeping, striving, yearning world. We don't know the precious names of the countless numbers Saddam has killed. We're talking about a people - lots of them parents - subjected to an endless vista of death and torture, a country in which freedom can never be won without help from outside.
Eh? So signing your name on a peace letter or a petition is showing off, is it? Surely if they'd decided to object but not sign we'd be hit with a Burchill half-think piece about how the anti-war people aren't brave enough to stand up and be counted. If you can't understand the 'not in my name' point, let's try and explain it for you: It means 'My country may be proceeding in this war, but it isn't doing it with my support.' It's no more about showing off than banging on under a signed column in a newspaper, is it?
Contrasting British servicemen and women with the appeasers, it is hard not to laugh. Are these two sides even the same species, let alone the same nationality? On one hand the selflessness and internationalism of the soldiers; on the other the Whites-First isolationism of the protesters. Excuse me, who are the idealists here? And is it a total coincidence that those stars most prominent in the anti-war movement are the most notoriously "difficult"and vain - Streisand, Albarn, Michael, Madonna, Sean Penn? And Robin Cook! Why might anyone believe world peace can be secured by this motley bunch?
The internationalism of the soldiers? Twaddle. They're not there thinking about the world, they're thinking about their job. Their job is to kill the people who they're told is the enemy. They are not the fucking Red Brigade. They're merely workmen doing a job. And Robin Cook difficult and vain? This is a man who's toed a Blair line for so long he's got athlete's foot, a man who swallowed shit in the name of cabinet loyalty for half a decade, a man with a ginger beard. And what of the other anti-war protesters - that wet bloke from Coldplay, the Dixies Chicks (briefly), the Pope? Meanwhile, the awkward and vain Gallagher Brothers and Charlton Heston seem to be pro-bomb the fuck out of everyone to me...
Anti-war nuts suffer from the usual mixture of egotism and self-loathing that often characterises recreational depression - an unholy alliance of Oprahism and Meldrewism in which you think you're scum, but also that you're terribly important, too. For instance, what about the loony who offered to be crucified on live TV if George Bush promised not to invade Iraq? "Send your troops home and take me," she wrote to the White House, adding later, "I don't want to appear as some nutter." Similarly, there are the human shields - now limping homewards after being shocked to discover, bless 'em, that Saddam wanted to stick them in front of military installations as opposed to the hospitals and petting zoos that they'd fondly imagined they were going to defend.
Yeah, there are some extreme people in the anti-war movement. You know what? There are people on the other side who offer to go and blow themselves up in the middle of Baghdad. No side has the monopoly on extremists.
What these supreme egotists achieve by putting themselves at the centre of every crisis is to make the Iraqi people effectively disappear. NOT IN MY NAME! is western imperialism of the sneakiest sort, putting our clean hands before the freedom of an enslaved people. But even those whose anti-war protests started in good faith now know that when Saddam's regime comes tumbling down, thousands of Iraqis will dance and sing with joy before the TV cameras, and thank our armed forces for giving them back their lives.
How embarrassing it will be for the peaceniks to have to explain to the celebrants how much better it would have been for them never to have been troubled by such joy!
Yes. They'll be dancing in Baghdad, that's for sure. We might need to find their legs for them first, mind.

 
NOT A QUAGMIRE: Reassuringly, pro-war media 'experts' are lining up to make it clear that the Iraq war will not be another Vietnam. This week, Andrew Neil is just one British journalist who's called up his vast experience of launching supplements about fashion and turning national newspapers into titles loathed by the country they pretend to represent to snort at anyone who might suggest that Iraq is merely Vietnam with lighter cameras and a direct influence on the price at the pump. And we've been sent a document which backs him up - here are, in fact, the top ten reasons why Iraq won't be like Vietnam at all:

10. Unlike the 60's, US troops have maps with countries coloured-in differently, showing clearly where the bad guys stop and the unaligned countries start
9. Michael Moore not likely to be cause of lust-driven doubts in mind of troops to the same extent as Jane Fonda
8. Bush adamant: No room in DC for another memorial wall - besides, those things just attract no many nutters driving tractors to the city
7. RIAA sign pledge that no Canadian subsidiary will release draft-dodger's anti-war albums
6. Fox News can't even spell Walter Cronkite
5. Desert conditions reduce chances of accidently covering kids with agent orange
4. Disliked platoon leaders to stick to the back - you can't stop squaddies shooting them, but at least they'll have to do it to their faces, dammit
3. Reduced frontline role for maverick DJs
2. Black guys, white guys - all to listen to the same music this time round
1. Henry Kissinger on board strictly in an advisory capacity

 
FRITWATCH: We're getting confused now about who's being scared in what direction - Roberto Alagna and Angea Gheorghiu pulled out of the Metropolitan Opera in New York to go to France, while the Belcea String Orchestra decided to not go to LA and stayed in London instead. Youssou N'Dour's pulled a thirty-eight date tour of the US, but that's a protest against the American policy, not because he's scared (we shan't mention how we're sure Bush will be sat, head in hands, knowing there's going to be a little less world music in the states as a result of his actions). But the extreme example of Not Frit has to go to The Wu-Tang clan who are heading off to Israel to show solidarity with the Israelis. They claim the country is full of hip-hoppers. We'll see...

 
FRANKS AND HONEST?: Tommy Franks has just this moment strode off after attempting to spin the call-up of extra troops - apparently, they were going to be coming anyway; but they've just moved up the ground war because of an "opportunity" to allow it to happen earlier than the original plan. Righto, Tommy. Since the original plan involved the Iraqis welcoming the invasion and rising up to fight alongside the US/UK troops, and that hasn't happened, and the Iraqi army were meant to have has their communications knocked out and that hasn't happened, could you perhaps give us a hint as to what has happened to make a land war likely to be easier earlier than originally advertised? Otherwise we might assume you're lying.

 
ANOTHER ANGLE: Of course, there's no reason why you shouldn't approach the Russian military intercept reports available at aeronautics.ru without the same sort of healthy scepticism you use for Al-Jazeera, CNN and BBC coverage, but the contents come from a different place, and offer an extra perspective on Whats Really Going On Down There. That it chimes with what you suspect in your heart is happening does give it an extra bit of credence, though. So far, the Russians are as unimpressed militarially as they are politically with the Bush efforts:
"Today we can see that the US advance is characterized by disorganized and "impulsive" actions. The troops are simply trying to find weak spots in the Iraqi defenses and break through them until they hit the next ambush or the next line of defense.
Not a single goal set before the coalition forces was met on time.
During the nine days of the war the coalition has failed:
- to divide Iraq in half along the An-Nasiriya - Al-Ammara line,
- to surround and to destroy the Iraqi group of forces at Basra,
- to create an attack group between the Tigris and the Euphrates with a front toward Baghdad,
- to disrupt Iraq's military and political control, to disorganize Iraq's forces and to destroy the main Iraqi attack forces.
It seems that while the US' targetted bombing has been really great at fucking up the lives of the people they're meant to be saving - no water in Basra, phonelines and electicity in Baghdad being knocked out, food for civillians getting low everywhere - the Iraqi army are still eating, still communicating (who could have guessed that rather than relying on the Baghdad telephone system, they might be using radios?) and pretty much together. Indeed, the supposed 'carefully targetted' raids are doing the opposite of what they were meant to do. They're so careful and precise, three have landed in Turkey already - you remember Turkey, it's that place Rumsfeld lectured NATO about needing our protection; he should have told us he meant from the Americans. Now, while it's possible that the three missiles that went to the wrong country and the one that hit that busload of Syrians are the only four that have gone awry, we're finding that stretches our credibility a little. And even if it is the case that the market massacre was done by Iraq to make the coalition look bad - not beyond the realms of what saddam would be capable of - you still can't escape the fact that having US troops chuntering towards the city walls firing missiles at the city would really help the Iraqis work up the impression. It's little wonder that the Russians have obtained a report " prepared by the Al-Kuwait-based [coalition] Psychological Operations Tactical Group for the [coalition] Special Ground Forces Command. The report analyzed the effectiveness of the information and propaganda war. According to the report, analysis of the television broadcasts, intercepted radio communications, interrogations of Iraqi POWs show that psychologically the Iraqis are now "more stable and confident" that they were during the last days before the war. This, according to the report, is due primarily to the coalition's numerous military failures.
"...Following nervousness and depression [of the Iraqis] during the first days of the war we can now observe a burst of patriotic and nationalistic feelings. ...There has been a sharp increase in the number of Iraqi refugees, who left the country before the war, returning to Iraq. A "cult of war" against the US and the UK is now emerging among the Iraqis...", the report states. [Reverse translation from Russian]
One other interesting statistic: The US has already burned through a quarter of its targetted weapons, according to aeronautics.