"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
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