The U.S. Special Forces and CIA operatives are now spread throughout Iraq, from Baghdad to the borders. This morning, for instance, working off information from Special Forces, F-15 pilots attacked a two-story building near Basra where hundreds of ruling Baath party leaders were believed to be gathered.

"We can find that these terror leaders are in fact having a meeting, and then call in very precise strikes to destroy that. And I'm pleased to say the result of that, we believe about 200 leaders of these irregular squads and key leaders [were] destroyed last night," said Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart of U.S. Central Command in Qatar.

Since Friday evening, coalition air strikes have targeted nine different Baath party headquarters, and a leadership compound in Baghdad.

Also this weekend, Army Rangers operating in total darkness engaged in a ferocious firefight to take what they said was an Iraqi commando headquarters in the western desert.

"The raid was successful and resulted in the capture of over 50 enemy personnel, weapons, a large cache of ammunition, gas masks, and radios," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks.

For at least a week, CIA paramilitary teams have been trying to kill members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle and Iraqi miltiary commanders, using snipers and demolition experts, The Washington Post reported today.

"Any military commander, whether they be in the Republican Guard or the regular army, would be a valid target," said retired U.S. Army Gen. Bill Nash, an ABCNEWS consultant.

Only a few of these have reportedly been killed, but the military and CIA are continuing to hunt them down.

"In the research that we have seen," says Dr. Michael Bradley, a teen behavior psychologist in Philadelphia, "when kids watch real-life footage they are disappointed. There is no music, it is not in color and you don't have seven camera angles."

One of these airings was followed by an interview with a man named François Boo, a security expert. Mr. Boo said straight away that such parading of captured soldiers was a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, to which Iraq, I note with amusement, is a signatory. He appeared to have his head screwed on nice and straight. Then the female host of the show guided him toward the point she wanted made. But the United States, she asked, has also surely engaged in the techniques of psychological warfare? Ah yes, said Mr. Boo, and one of them -- I was so furious I can't remember which -- referred to the millions of leaflets the American-led coalition has dropped over Iraq, urging soldiers to surrender rather than fight.

You see? The sides in this war are indistinguishable, if not equally culpable of equal sins, at least equally capable of them.

That is the pervasive sense of phony egalitarianism nourished by the era of instantaneous communication and the absolute democracy of the World Wide Web: All war violence is the same, equally inexcusable; all news sources are equally trustworthy or not; American and British soldiers are as every bit suspect as Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard; every opinion is equally valuable, and there must be no judgment. Every life is worth the same as every other. Every sperm is sacred.

[...]

But America does not parade its prisoners of war on television, being asked questions while in a state of abject fear and humiliation. American soldiers do not conduct "search and rescue" operations for defenceless Iraqi soldiers by shooting up rivers and setting bushes on fire, as the Iraqis did in Baghdad yesterday, when they believed, apparently erroneously, that coalition pilots had been shot down and landed in the water. That was quite a splendid scene. American soldiers may whoop with excitement at the sound of a missile being fired, but you do not find them dancing, in celebration, at the deaths of civilians; the same cannot be said of the Arab world.

I simply cannot understand why anyone outside of Ba'ath Party headquarters imagines we would feel compelled to fight house-to-house in Baghdad, destroying the city, putting civilian lives at risk and throwing away our soldiers.

Certainly, we'll need to engage in some limited urban combat, for specific objectives - as the Brits are doing on the outskirts of Basra and the Marines have done in Nasiriyah. But there is no iron rule of warfare that says we have to take Baghdad block by block.

[…]

When the right opportunities present themselves, our forces will swoop in on pinpoint raids. And no, we're not talking about "Black Hawk Down II." Anyway, people tend to forget that, in Mogadishu, we actually won the tactical battle overwhelmingly - 20 dead Americans, a thousand dead Somali militiamen.

At the end of that fight, we had thoroughly broken "General" Aideed's forces. Then President Bill Clinton, the most frightened man on earth, declared defeat. The U.S. Army's Rangers were ordered home in humiliation, after winning a tough but enormous victory. President Bush may have his faults, but he ain't going to cut and run on our men and women in uniform.

The Defense Ministry had denied that GROM (Thunder) special forces were involved in combat, but on Monday it confirmed their participation after dailies splashed photographs of the soldiers in the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, where U.S.-led troops are battling pockets of Iraqi resistance.

[...]

GROM is an SAS-style commando unit which has seen recent action in Afghanistan. It is one of the few highly trained units in Poland's armed forces, which are mostly underfunded and still rely on outdated Soviet-era equipment.

[...]

The Reuters photographs showed masked GROM soldiers taking prisoners, scrawling graffiti on a portrait of Saddam and posing with U.S. Navy Seals holding up a U.S. flag.

"These photos shouldn't have happened," said [Defense Minister Jerzy] Szmajdzinski. "The next time it will definitely be with the Polish flag."

Polish GROM commandos, Umm Qasr, Iraq
(via Reuters)

"We saw some black berets hanging up in a tree, and we went to investigate and we saw all these uniforms hanging there. I figure half these guys you see walking around are soldiers. They've discarded their uniforms," the Marine [at An Nasiriyah] said. "They're out there, they're watching us and they're planning small counterattacks."

Marines escorting Iraqi prisoners
(via Washington Post/Reuters)

I’m not disheartened by the sight of what those motherless sons of bitches did to the captured troops - not in the sense of wishing we would curl up and whimper Mommy and scamper back home. My first reaction was to wish that we’d identify the location of a Special Republican Guard unit, replace the B in MOAB with P, and drop the Mother Of All Payback on them. This intemperate emotion conflicts with the advice of lumbering pseudoprole Michael Moore, seen earlier this week wearing a button that said “Shoot Movies, Not Iraqis.” Well, Mike, the Iraqis shot a movie about the shooting of Americans; what now?

BANK: Moore says North Country Bank & Trust in Traverse City, Mich., offered a deal where, "if you opened an account, the bank would give you a gun." He walks into a branch and walks out with a gun.

ACTUALLY: Moore didn't just walk in off the street and get a gun. The transaction was staged for cameras. You have to buy a long-term CD, then go to a gun shop to pick up the weapon after a background check.

But Jan Jacobson, the bank employee who worked with Mr. Moore on his account, says that only happened because Mr. Moore's film company had worked for a month to stage the scene. "What happened at the bank was a prearranged thing," she says. The gun was brought from a gun dealer in another city, where it would normally have to be picked up. "Typically, you're looking at a week to 10 days waiting period," she says. Ms. Jacobson feels used: "He just portrayed us as backward hicks."

A senior pentagon official has confirmed to Fox News on Sunday that coalition forces have discovered a "huge" suspected chemical weapons factory near the Iraqi city of An Najaf, which is situated some 90 miles south of Baghdad.

"It is Iraqi official position, we will respect carefully the international humanitarian law, and the Geneva Convention," he said. "I hope that the American army will respect also this Geneva Convention because I hope that what is happening in Iraq now, both parties will respect international humanitarian law.

The bodies, mostly still fully clothed but some with shirts pulled up, were shown on the floor in pools of blood. In the first room, at least two had wounds to the head, and another had a groin wound. In another room, an Iraqi uncovered more bodies, some with blackened faces.

In the end, all the Iraqi irregular forces are accomplishing is to make our troops more determined. The latest message I had from a friend serving in the war made it clear that our troops are enraged, not deterred, by Iraqi actions - not least by the execution in cold blood of American prisoners and the abuse of other POWs.

He said the United Nations was the only body that could take responsibility for rebuilding Iraq, underscoring that he is willing to consider some sort of resolution for rebuilding the country but not one that would seem to legitimize the war or give the United States and Britain exceptional powers.

``Many women are feeling that all of this negative male energy has really taken our country in a direction that feels dangerous to us, especially after Sept. 11,'' said Benjamin, who will stay in Washington until International Women's Day, Saturday. ``We are determined to make the world safer and better for our kids -- and the men who lead this country certainly haven't done it.''

Lance Corporal Karen Barilani, 20, Hillsborough, New Hampshire

(from the New York Times web site)

"Those are mercenaries. Most probably they will be treated as mercenaries, hirelings and as war criminals. ... For sure, international law does not apply to those," [Iraqi information minister Mohammed Sa’eed al-Sahhaf] said.

Today, claims of territorial sovereignty by dictators and illegitimate regimes amount to the biggest con in history. No matter how unfairly borders are drawn, no matter how monstrously tyrants behave toward their populations, no matter how ruthlessly a strongman seizes power, the world pretends that those who hold the reins in the capital city are entitled to do whatever they want on their own territory.

As hundreds of coalition troops swept in here just after dawn, the heartache of a town that has felt the hardest edges of Saddam Hussein's rule seemed to burst forth, with villagers running into the streets to celebrate in a kind of grim ecstasy, laughing and weeping in long guttural cries.

"Sorry about the inconvenience, people, but there are people dying," [protester Anna Wilson] said. "How addicted to our stuff are we that we can't stop work for one day?"

The Dixie Chicks — who took a lot of heat after one member of the group made anti-Bush comments — narrowly averted another controversy with some of their red-blooded fans. The Scoop was startled to learn that the country and western crooners posed for one of those “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” ads for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — but the ad was never released.

(UK Marines conducting exercises in Kuwait, 3-20-2003, from AP)

Iraqi television broadcast a speech by a defiant Saddam Hussein this morning, a few hours after the first blasts on Baghdad. In it, he exhorted his people to "draw your swords" against invaders and referred to the United States government as "criminals" and "Zionists."

(from Reuters)

Some vehicles sport American flags. On the side of a Humvee is a hand- painted sign, reminding everyone about 1991. It says, "we're baack."

The mood of the troops, geared up by this charge across the desert, is fine.

Serious, but not depressed. They're no longer in base camp. They're closer to what they came here to do.

"We're the best trained Army in the world," says Capt. Neubauer.

At night, hours after arriving at this patch of desert, the troops clean their weapons, clean the Bradleys' engines, clean everything and anything that could be gummed up by the millions of acres of sand out here.

After dinner, one of the troops breaks out cigars -- it's a special occasion.

He has some more for later. Baghdad.

(3rd Infantry Division training exercise in Kuwait a few weeks back, from AP (?))

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, a passionate opponent of the military campaign, condemned the move toward an invasion, saying it meant "certain death to thousands of innocent men, women and children."

“There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein’s youngest son] personally supervise these murders.”

So the secret police came for his wife. Where is he? They tortured her. And when she didn't break, they tortured his [then two-year old - Tony] daughter.
"When did you last see your father? Has he phoned? Has he been in contact?" They half-crushed the toddler's feet.
Now, she doesn't walk, she hobbles, and Ali fears that Saddam's men have crippled his daughter for life. So Ali talked to us.

"Have we gone to war yet?" she asked sarcastically, early on. "We (expletive) deserve to get bombed. Bring it on." Later she yelled, "Let's get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!"

(from Something Awful’s Photoshop Phriday)