Okay, now it's begun

[khaosworks]

Iraqi Deadline Passes, Explosions in Baghdad

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said it had began its war against Iraq on Wednesday just minutes after several explosions were heard over Baghdad.

"The opening stages of the disarmament of the Iraqi regime have begun. The president will address the nation at 10:15 p.m. EST," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

A handful of explosions rocked Baghdad at dawn on Thursday as jets roared overhead. Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries opened up and air raid sirens sounded.

Some 275,000 U.S. and troops awaited the order from President Bush to launch an assault on Iraq, after an ultimatum expired for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to give up power and go into exile.

Saddam ignored Bush's ultimatum to leave the country with his two sons by Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST, which was 4 a.m. on Thursday in Iraq.

U.S. and British troops moved into the demilitarized zone that straddles the Iraq-Kuwait border on Wednesday. The zone extends three miles into Kuwait and six miles into Iraq. Soldiers donned chemical suits at desert staging posts that were swept by fierce sandstorms.

"Let's get this show on the road. Play time is over," said Staff Sgt. Lavert Mitchell of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, who with colleagues was packing his backpack and checking equipment, ready to move into action from his desert base in Kuwait.

Bush met with military planners, chaired a National Security Council meeting and was "allowing the time that he has given to pass," said Fleischer.

On aircraft carriers and at land bases, pilots prepared for what is expected to be one of the most ferocious aerial bombardments in history.

Upward of 3,000 satellite-guided bombs and cruise missiles will be unleashed from sea and air on targets vital to Saddam's government to start to the war, officials said.

The strategy, dubbed "shock and awe" by the U.S. military, is designed to destroy Saddam's air defenses and remove his command and control ability while stunning Iraqi troops to the extent that many will be too demoralized to resist.

British and U.S. aircraft dropped almost 2 million leaflets over southeastern Iraq urging Iraqi soldiers not to use weapons of mass destruction or torch oil wells, and advising them to lay down their weapons rather than die for a lost cause.

Seventeen Iraqi soldiers gave themselves up to U.S.-led forces in northern Kuwait, the U.S. military said.

Fleischer braced Americans for casualties. "It could be a matter of some duration. We do not know," he said.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said in Baghdad the invaders were facing "definite death." Iraqi legislators vowed to die for their leader.

Comments

No, it hasn't!

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Right after the shrub, the Pentagon was saying, no, this isn't war. Not yet. Just a "target of opportunity."

(Hello! Anybody home???)

Re: No, it hasn't!

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to see that the war is being conducted in inimitable Shrub style - like a fucking pantomime. "Oh yes it is!" "Oh no it isn't!" "Oh yes it is!"

Whining?

[osj.livejournal.com]

Just a comment that's been percolating for awhile...

While I appreciate your strong objection to the war, I do not completely share it. I totally agree that the hamfisted, inept manner in which the Bush administration has bulldozed their way to war is horrible - I think Dick Gephardt put it rather well when he expressed the Democratic Party's great regret at the way the administration had totally botched the diplomatic aspect.

However, there is undeniably another side to the anti-war argument which, when expressed by someone like Tony Blair, makes a lot more sense. To me, it's a great pity that the US was in the driving seat, because I think Blair would've made a far better driver.

To cut this short, I agree with the objectives of the war - the world WOULD be better off without Saddam's regime - but I totally disagree with the way the US has brought up to this point (while also agreeing with the view that France handled the argument over the second resolution quite badly, giving the US/UK alliance an excuse to walk away...).

So...now that war is already upon us...any further debate on the rights and wrongs of it seem quite moot and rapidly start to become whining. I agree with Kofe Annan that the focus must now turn on the humanitarian disaster, i.e. ensuring that the conduct of the war is better than the conduct of the diplomatic efforts that preceded it. Recriminations can come later.

One last thing I have to say, echoing Tony Blair, is that - assuming the war is over quickly, as most people expect - the Iraqis will almost definitely be better off after Saddam is gone. I don't think the reports of the atrocities of Saddam's regime are just Western propaganda. In that sense, the human rights violations which Saddam's regime is guilty of are worse than those committed by, say, Israel, and are more akin to the atrocities committed during the Balkan conflicts - in which the UN eventually intervened (arguably, too little, too late), and for which (some of) the perpetrators are now on trial.

I'd be interested to see how this blog evolves to meet the changed circumstances, i.e. how it transits to a war footing...

Re: Whining?

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

See the entry marked Counterpoint.

Re: Whining?

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

I don't accept Blair would have been a better driver - a more sophisticated one perhaps, a better politician, but for someone like me who bears a bitter, irrational and total hatred of Tony Blair and the way he has betrayed everything Labour used to stand for, it's a matter of chosing between Darth Maul and Jar-Jar Binks, no prize for guessing who's who. Blair's a power-hungry opportunist whose soul agenda is Tony Blair, who rode in on Bush's coat-tails, exploiting the 9/11 tragedy to push himself onto the world stage, and is therefore committed to bending over and squealing like a pig to Bush's redneck banjo player on demand. But I digress.

Yes, the world certainly may be better without Saddam. But at what cost? A hostile international environment. A divided United Nations. The probable deaths of thousands of Iraqis. The costs in lives of an invading Army whose national security is not threatened by this tin-pot little dictator. Years of reconstruction. A economy that cannot support it. It's easy to say, "Yeah, go team!" when you're not the countries who're actually financing the mess or contributing in terms of human lives.

Will the Iraqi people be greatful? The exiles, probably. But the ones whose home the coalition of the damned will be bombing, the ones who will starve in the aftermath, the ones caught in the crossfire? Does the argument "To save the village, we had to destroy it," sound familiar? And was that argument even valid in the first place?

And of course there are the ramifications I've been musing about all along - the emergence of new anti-American pockets, the instability fostered in the region, the feeling of "Who's Next?" on the list - and given the way the US has handled this, do you really want them handling North "I've got the nukes la la la la la" Korea in the same way?

And if you think that the US will help Iraq back on its feet and establish democracy, I can only note that the US has had a brilliant track record in supporting dictatorships over democracies (save for Israel and South Africa), and a lousy track record in reconstruction (see Afghanistan). And those weren't even Shrub administrations. So look at the man, and tell me if he fills you with confidence as the usher of a new golden age of liberation and freedom for Iraq.

And I keep thinking of that paving on the road to Hell.