Top Iraqi Commander in Basra Is Captured by British Troops. A general from Saddam Hussein’s army has been captured in southern Iraq and is being pressed to provide strategic information, British officers said today. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
NYT. Second market attack in two days in Baghdad. I am more than a little skeptical about these “attacks.” Here’s why. The latest attack occured in a crowded Baghdad marketplace during the day. The vast majority of our attacks on Baghdad have and continue to be at night. Also, nearly 70% of US air attacks made during the same time period that these marketplace attacks were made were on the Republican Guard divisions well outside the city. As a result, the potential that US air strikes caused the damage is extremely low (particularly when contrasted to the high degree of accuracy attained when we were dumping almost all of our munitions on Baghdad). I don’t even think this was Iraqi anti-aircraft fire gone astray. It is rather a calculated measure to inflame Arab streets by Saddam. He is staging these explosions and it is working given the “Fox” news quality of Al Jazeera reporting. [John Robb’s Radio Weblog]
And Now, the Good News. The administration should have prepared the country better for the cost of war, but at least this war will be won, and won decisively. By Maichael O’hanlon. [New York Times: Opinion]
A New War. In the first days of the war we saw a great deal of good. Now we are beginning to see the bad. In a sense, the real war has just begun. [New York Times: Opinion]
I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam. Daniel Pepper, in the Sunday Daily Telegraph, has written an interesting editiorial on his experiences as a human shield in Iraq: I wanted to join the human shields in Baghdad because it was direct action which had a chance of bringing the anti-war movement to the forefront of world attention. […] […] Jake was so shocked at how naive he had been. We all were. It hadn’t occurred to anyone that the Iraqis might actually be pro-war. [kuro5hin.org]
Al-Jazeera launches English language website. Monday, March 24th, Al-Jazeera, the first idependent Arabic satellite channel launched its English language web site. [kuro5hin.org]
Just Following (Saddam Hussein’s) Orders. Documents taken in Iraq after the first Persian Gulf war demonstrate Saddam Hussein’s long history of abusing prisoners of war. By Ibrahim Al-marashi. [New York Times: Opinion]