Hitch responds

[Dennis Perrin]

> > And I am impressed by the precision-bombing . . .
> >    As ever,
> >CH

"American and British casualties were heavier
than expected, and soldiers said they were having a hard
time distinguishing Iraqi forces from civilians. 'It's not
pretty,' said one marine. 'It's not surgical. You try to
limit collateral damage, but they want to fight. Now it's
just smash-mouth football.' The bombing of Baghdad
continued; one reporter described seeing a severed hand, a
pile of brains, and the remains of a mother and her three
small children who were burned alive in their car after two
American missiles landed in a crowded market. A few days
later another marketplace was hit by a missile and dozens of
civilians died. Pentagon officials suggested that the
missiles could have been fired by the Iraqis. An American
missile also hit an empty shopping mall in Kuwait City;
although U.S. officials said they could not confirm the
origin of the missile, Kuwaitis said that fragments were
recovered that clearly established the missile's provenance.
Bush Administration sources said they were frustrated with
the skeptical tone of some recent reporting on the war, and
some American troops were becoming impatient with the
failure of most Iraqis to show enthusiasm for the invasion.
'I expected a lot more people to surrender,' one soldier
told a reporter. 'From all the reports we got, I thought
they would all capitulate.' Another soldier was unimpressed
with the ruins of the ancient city of Ur, the birthplace of
Abraham. 'I've been all the way through this desert from
Basra to here and I ain't seen one shopping mall or fast
food restaurant,' he told a British reporter. 'These people
got nothing. Even in a little town like ours of 2,500 people
you got a McDonald's at one end and a Hardee's at the other.' "

http://www.harpers.org/weekly-review

DP