The US military continues to successfully hunt down more of Saddam's key people, including his first cousin, Ali Hassan Majid (known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of chemical weapons on the Kurds). The hope is that we're moving ever closer to capturing Saddam himself.
As things started getting worse this week, one couldn't help wondering whether there are parallels between our involvement in Iraq and Vietnam. Here's one answer from a Daily Telegraph columnist, who argues that differences in terrain and organization make Iraq very unlike Vietnam.
"The coalition, as America never did in Vietnam, controls, if imperfectly, the whole operational area. What it faces is not a guerrilla war, but an insurgency, and one supported by only a fraction of the population."
Meanwhile, Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, whose writings are now being picked up on the Web site of the British newspaper The Guardian, ponders the fate of his country:
"people want to read that things are getting better and we are happy, but things are getting better in such a slow pace that it is almost imperceptible, and with the one step we move forward on one front we move back 3 steps on other fronts. People need to know that their kids and loved ones are here for a good reason and this is what they want to hear. Otherwise they send me emails saying that I am being part of the problem. They send me emails telling me that I should help the Americans capture the terrorists and Baathists, as if they walk around in the streets wearing signs. Maybe we Iraqis did expect too much from the American invasion, we did hope there is going to be an easy way. Get rid of Saddam and have the Americans help us rebuild. I don't think like that anymore. I am starting to believe that the chaos we will go thru the next 5 or 10 years is part of the price we will *have* to pay to have our freedom."
This NPR story by Anne Garrels, broadcast this morning, was a particularly sad story. It's about a senior Iraqi official who was assigned to work with UN weapons inspectors, and turned himself in to U.S. troops early in the war. The interview with his German-born wife is particularly poignant; she was near the UN headquarters at the time of the bombing, and no one has seen her since.
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