WTF Is It Now?!?

ALLIED GENERALS DRAW UP NEW BATTLE PLAN
In Qatar, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks hinted that Central Command may be out of touch with the real situation on the ground.

He said: "There is a different view on planet Earth."

Pentagon chiefs now do not expect to launch a major offensive on Baghdad for at least a month in an attempt to quell huge pockets of fighting raging across Iraq. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Don 'Warboner' Rumsfeld is still convinced the people of Baghdad will rise up and overthrow Saddam. He says that the US will now lay siege to the capital, but he also admits: "It could take some time."

His tone is starkly different from when he confidently crowed at a US air base at Aviano on February 7: "It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

One senior military official said last night: "We're not going back to the drawing board completely - but it's pretty close."

The US now plans to step up the air strikes as spy chiefs confirmed Saddam was alive and in full control of his forces. - snipped from here.




Live from Turkey
Via The Road to Ankara:

But the region is rife with conspiracy theories. Aykut said that if I went out and asked the people on the street, half would say the United States committed 9/11 so it could go after Iraq. (Interestingly, almost half of Americans - 45 percent - believe Saddam was personally behind 9/11.) Turkey is also rippling with an anti-Bush sentiment. Turks like Americans and sometimes, even America. But more than 90 percent oppose this war and a similar percentage absolutely loathe George W. Bush. Aykut sheepishly admitted he hoped the war would go badly so Bush would lose in 2004. I made him feel bad when I reminded him that many Iraqis and Americans would die if it went too badly.

- Thanks to Mercurial.