State of Shock and Awe

Tom Spencer links to this CBS report about Pentagon plans to launch 300 to 400 cruise missles on Iraq on the second day of the war, sometime in March. Guess that comment to the Iraqis that their enemy was not surrounding their country was a bit of a stretcher. Sure, "the day [Saddam] and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation" -- you should only live so long.

As for Bush's claim that Saddam has "already used [the worlds most dangerous weapons] on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured," former CIA Iraq specialist Stephen Pelletiere has called that allegation into question. Pelletiere claims that the gassing incident occurred during a border battle in the Iran-Iraq war in which both sides used chemical weapons, and that "after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report" which "asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas." This certainly warrants further investigation, particularly given Bush's track record for inaccuracy on many important matters.