Bitter earnest
At the outset of the US Civil Way Mary Chesnut wrote:

Woe to those who began this war," she warned, "if they were not in bitter earnest.

Are Rumsfeld and Bush in bitter earnest? Their campaign is not working as they said it would. the Iraqi regime is not collapsing. The coalition is losing lives. The supine media which allowed Bush to get away with deceit after deceit is only now writing about the failing strategy.

U.S. casualties that were suffered in the process are bound to provoke criticism of the gamble that U.S. commanders are taking, predicted Peter Feaver, a Duke University expert in national security. "Certainly, you will have no trouble finding quotes from retired Army officers saying that the war plan has been too risky," he said. But, he added, in his own opinion "the really important thing about the plan is that it has put mission accomplishment ahead of force protection."

Military experts predicted that the resistance in the south was so disorganized and relatively small-scale that it would die out quickly. "Nothing surprising," said retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson, who has played the role of the Iraqi commander in several U.S. military war games of an invasion. In those games, played to probe U.S. war plans for weaknesses, he said, "We came up with much worse." He noted that the Iraqi attacks were sporadic and small in nature, temporarily stopping small U.S. units but hardly affecting the broad advance toward Baghdad. Getting to the capital quickly is a key U.S. objective.

The promoters of this war (some of whom proclaimed it a cakewalk) are accountable for their military methods as well as the immorality of the war itself.

The supply line is vulnerable.

But Iraqi attacks on the long lines of the U.S. advance, stretching fully 200 miles up from Kuwait, cost the lives of several U.S. soldiers -- U.S. commanders confirmed up to nine dead -- and spelled captivity for at least five others, apparently from a maintenance unit chasing along in the rear.

U.S. military officials said force commanders would now be exercising greater caution. Bush's new warning not to expect a rapid victory struck a grim chord.

THE COMING DAYS

Military analysts said the entire operation was now entering a crucial phase which could show whether Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's gamble on lighter but sharper armies would pay off or prove to be too great a risk.

"The next 72 hours could show whether we've overplayed our hand," said MSNBC television analyst Dan Goure, noting that the northern front Washington had originally hoped to open from Turkey did not exist, due to Ankara's refusal to allow it.

Going light has turned into a Napoleon strategy. The coalition is penetrating deeper and deeper into hostile territory. The line of supply stretches longer and longer. Centres of continuing resistance stand near the flanks of that supply line. A humanitarian disaster is emerging in Basra, now without water for many hours. The promised mass surrenders to be achieved by shock and awe are not happening. This strategy did not succeed for Napoleon in Moscow. I am not sure it will succeed in Iraq.

Bush' inability to open a northern front flows directly from diplomatic failure. Now that he has agreed to a Turkish entry into northern Iraq he may achieve the unique distinction of setting off ethnic war in the country before his alleged project of liberation is even complete. Iraq has now announced it will observe the Geneva convention, but it was Bush who opened the door in the Geneva convention when he decided it did not run to Guantanamo.

We are beginning to see articles about high expectations

In public, the president and his aides had never predicted the war would be short or effortless. But neither did they stress the likelihood of tough combat. Instead, during the five-month diplomatic battle to win international support for military action, they emphasized that the outcome would not be in doubt.

Some military officers warned privately before the war that public expectations were set too high, but their caution collided with the optimism of advocates of the new-style psychological warfare -- sometimes dubbed "shock and awe" -- that was supposed to buckle Hussein's regime.

Bush worked a mild caveat into his televised statement on the first night of the war: "A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict," he said.

I believe the main reason Bush and his ilk did not prepare their peoples for the dangers of this war was not psyops. It was a simple wish to evade responsibility, to make this war more salable, it was spin. Spin can win elections. Spin cannot save lives. Spin cannot win wars.

Woe to those who began this war, if they were not in bitter earnest.