From the invaluable David Warren:
You wouldn’t know it from reading most of the papers, but the war in Iraq is going fabulously well. After just five days the U.S. Third Infantry Division and supporting units are approaching Baghdad. The immense steel column continues to drive reinforcements across the Iraqi desert, while its leading edge rumbles through the fields, villages, and waterways of Mesopotamia. To its rear, the “sleeper cells” of Ba’athist and terrorist hitmen waiting in ambush are being eliminated one by one. Special forces have seized bridges, dams, airstrips, oil and gas fields, and weapons sites all over the country. The U.S. Air Force has devastated leadership targets, military infrastructure, and the physical symbols of the Saddam regime, across Baghdad and elsewhere. Allied troops have Basra, Nasiriyah, now Karbala, and other Iraqi cities surrounded, and are tightening each noose. Snipers in the towns are being patiently deleted. The “Scud box” of western Iraq is in allied hands, daily more secure, and allied forces are building with endless air deployments to the northern front. In all, the allies have taken only a few dozen killed, and a couple hundred lesser casualties — many of these from small accidents within the most amazing and vast logistical exercise since our troops landed in Normandy (when we lost men at the rate of up to 500 a minute, liberating France). In just five days all this has been achieved! And while the most grisly parts of the campaign still lie ahead, all the worst fears have gone unrealized, so far.
I second that. And if we weren’t bending over backward to act scrupulously while the enemy behaves like barbarians, we’d be even further along.
THE MAIN WORRY: I’m not a military expert, so I offer this piece from the Washington Post just as food for thought. Do we have enough troops in time for the final battle? Have we gone too fast too soon? Those seem reasonable concerns to me, although I’m not qualified to take a side in the argument. But it is not too unreasonable to worry that with one northern front denied us, we need overwhelming force to smash through to Baghdad quickly enough. Do we have enough? And do we have enough humanitarian follow-through available soon enough to build support in the South? That’s what I want to know. If you see any useful information out there on this, please send it to me and I’ll link and post.
The Dish 