Eyes to the South

Countdown to Invasion: 6 days.

Three interesting articles today. One notes a huge armored exercise by the Army in Kuwait. Another notes that the British and Americans are planning an amphibious assault on Iraq from the Gulf. Still another says that President Bush is cancelling his Africa trip next month to focus on Iraq.

So what do these news reports tell us? They tell us to look south to Kuwait and Gulf and fear the coming storm that will go all the way to Baghdad, as the writing on the tank gun barrel helpfully prompted in the first story. The third story tells us that the President expects to be busy in January getting ready to pull the trigger on the force that many other reports show will mass in January.

That's what they say but I don't see it that way. I suppose I'll have to be properly embarrassed if these stories mean exactly what they say. Oh, sure, I expect an amphibious invasion. Helicoptering into Basra while other forces advance overland will keep telltale massing signs in Kuwait to a minimum and provide fewer targets for an Iraqi preemptive chemical strike. And I do expect American armor to roll north out of Kuwait and head for Baghdad-I just don't expect it to be much more than the brigade now exercising, backed by attack helicopters and artillery to sound like an entire corps. The main attack comes out of Jordan.

As for the President cancelling next month's trip, that seems like an obvious telegraphing of our punch, which says to me that I should go with my hunch on the invasion timing. We won't be waiting for the Blix report at the end of January.

But the Iraqis will expect to have another month to prepare for war and to prepare to stall our invasion with some false "progress" on inspections. We will get tactical surprise. Senior officials note they are ready now and that there is no timetable for war even as everybody talks about January or February, or even the summer!

On CNN now, a bunch of Western clerical types are whining for peace, actually claiming that the Iraqi people they talk to who say we should stay out are actually free to speak their minds. One man of the cloth implored President Bush to speak to the people. I hope that particular pacifist returns after the invasion to speak to those same people and explain why he--a free man supposedly educated and holy--stood with Saddam when the people of Iraq were too scared and cowed to speak freely. I hope he visits the torture chambers. I hope he will seek forgiveness for confusing defending a butcher with advocating a different course than invasion to solve the Iraq problem.

On to Baghdad. Very soon.