Wag the Dog Unreality TV – Part 1
"Welcome to Baghdad, we have left the gates open"

Copyright Joe Vialls,  6 April
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Footage of Baghdad Airport shot in 1991, then recycled as “real time” on 3 April 2003
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           There is probably nothing more galling for the military high command than to have the western media broadcast a major victory it has not yet achieved. And so it was on 3 April, when fuzzy indistinct pictures of a “ferocious firefight at Saddam International Airport” were flashed around the world by everyone from CNN to CBC and ITN. The fact that these TV images were extracted from file footage shot at Baghdad airport back in 1991, seemed to escape attention.
            Unfortunately, as their spectacular though acutely embarrassing false “victory” was being beamed across the world to a curious audience, the most advanced battalions of the American 3rd Infantry were still bogged down forty miles south of  Saddam International. Then, while its reconnaissance units probed ahead a few miles at a time, trying to determine whether or not there was a Republican Guard trap on the southern approaches to Baghdad city, the 3rd Infantry got an unexpected lucky break.
            Apparently stung into action by journalists citing the false airport “conquest” claim, the Iraqi Information Minister shouted "Rubbish! Lies! Go and look for yourself.", and without further delay  a mob of western journalists headed out to the airport, with the venerable Robert Fisk reporting on the visit less than 12 hours later:-
          “Only three hours earlier, the BBC had reported claims that forward units of an American mechanized infantry division were less than 16km west of Baghdad -- and that some US troops had taken up positions on the very edge of the international airport.
          “But I was 27km west of the city. And there were no Americans, no armor, not a soul around the runways of the airport whose namesake, in poster form, sat nonchalantly in the arrivals lounge in a business suit, cigar in hand. Even more astonishingly, there was no sign of the 12,000 Republican Guards whom the US division expected to fight.
“Indeed, Saddam Hussein International Airport looked as if it was enduring an industrial strike (let us not conceive of such an event in Saddam's Iraq) rather than an imminent takeover by the world's only superpower… 
          “Sure, the Americans had been caught lying again - as they were about the ‘securing’ of Nasiriyah more than a week ago - but was that the only reason journalists were permitted to visit Baghdad airport? We saw no Republican Guards - just as the Americans have themselves somehow failed to discover the 12,000 Republican Guards supposedly facing them.”
            The 3rd Infantry could hardly believe its luck. Fisk had provided superb quality intelligence from behind enemy lines, well beyond the limited abilities of its own reconnaissance units! Without wondering why the Information Minister had allowed the journalists to drive to Saddam International in the first place, and completely ignoring the subtle warning woven into Fisk’s text,  the 3rd hit the ground running and rushed up the highway to the airport, finally arriving at the perimeter fence late on 4 April 2003.
            Then, as the 3rd rushed north at a frantic pace, Saddam Hussein himself suddenly and inexplicably decided to take his first casual stroll on the streets of Baghdad since the invasion started. It was the real Saddam, no doubt about that. As the wary old warrior “pressed the flesh” and urged his people on to victory, you could see his eyes constantly square-searching the sky for any possible incoming ground attack aircraft.
           Coincidence or not,  Saddam Hussein’s sudden walkabout certainly deflected Pentagon attention away from the antics of the 3rd Infantry advancing on the airport. Rumor has it that Donald Rumsfeld turned pink, red, and then white, before finally appearing to suffer some sort of anxiety attack. The Valium shot provided by one of his many aides apparently seemed to provide a brief respite, or at least it did until Saddam cheerfully ventured out for a second walkabout the very next day. This affront apparently placed the American Secretary of Defense well beyond the help of simple Valium, and he reportedly curled up in the fetal position sucking his thumb.
            Meanwhile, members of the 3rd were having a hell of a time smashing their way into Saddam International, making all of the extravagant noises normally associated with a heavily mechanized division. Tanks tracks tore chunks of immaculate grass up as the 3rd advanced in line abreast across the empty airfield, liberally peppering the empty terminal building ahead with a hail of 120-mm high explosive shells.
            Then all was silence, and US army officers were finally able to tell real television cameras on 5 April that they had “conquered” Saddam International Airport. The false media story had become proud 3rd Infantry reality, and officers immediately started placing guards around the airport’s massive ten-mile perimeter. Yes, you did read that right – I said ten miles! But guard it they must, because a handful of Iraqi regular army soldiers and civil home guards keep shooting sporadically at the place with rifles.
            Around this point in time the officers may have started questioning the wisdom of conquering this giant airport, which could not possibly be of any use to the Iraqi Government again until at least September. Two officers commented that the airport was “great” and “just right for flying in supplies direct from Kuwait”, but they should have consulted the Air Force first.
            Though Robert Fisk drove for 27 kilometers to reach the airport by road, it is a mere 20 kilometers in a straight line from downtown Baghdad, i.e. the same sort of line a pair of bracketing artillery shells might follow if fired at a giant transport plane landing on the runway. The Iraqis do not need expensive surface-to-air missiles to protect Saddam International Airport. In fact, any Iraqi counter-battery weapon firing a base-bleed shell could drop in an “April surprise” from a standoff position more than thirty kilometers away.
            By rushing forward as fast as it did, the 3rd Infantry has stretched the supply lines from Kuwait almost to breaking point, but achieved no discernable military objective. Every supply truck coming up from Kuwait with fuel, ammo, food and all-important water, must traverse several hundred very hostile miles of desert, scrub and forest before it can deliver the goods.
            Perhaps this was the primary objective of the initial false media story, followed by the primed  Fisk intelligence “leak” which finally sucked the 3rd Infantry into the airport. Remember here that Robert Fisk suspected a trap, and announced his suspicion very clearly where he wrote, “Sure, the Americans had been caught lying again - as they were about the ‘securing’ of Nasiriyah more than a week ago - but was that the only reason journalists were permitted to visit Baghdad airport?” Alas, Fisk’s warning was obviously far too subtle for the 3rd Infantry.
            According to the Russian GRU [Military Intelligence], the hostile ground between the 3rd Infantry at Saddam International and the supply base in Kuwait is nowadays extremely dangerous, with “Experts estimating that the total number of Iraqis fighting behind the coalition front line approaches 90,000-100,000 regular army troops and militia.” These figures are considered to be very close to the truth, because back-analysis shows the GRU reports to be surprising accurate.
            The “militia” referred to by the GRU are armed civilian Iraqis defending their own sovereign territory against the illegal American and British invaders, in much the same way that the British Home Guard would have protected Britain back in 1940, had the Germans managed to cross the English Channel and invade the country. The British Home Guard stored arms and ammunition anywhere they could, including schools and churches, and each member was expected to “kill at least one German” if the latter managed to land on British soil. No doubt the Iraqi Home Guard will try to do the same, and in much the same manner.
            Orwellian attempts by George Bush and Co. to demonize these Iraqi Home Guard members as “terrorists” who are “not adhering to the rules of war” are doomed to failure. It is self evident that the Bush-imposed title of “Force of Liberation” applied to American, British and  Australian soldiers is a fatuous lie. These men who are bombing, shooting, looting, and raping Iraqi women [Yes, raping – ask the US Marines in Nasiriya], are by definition belligerent invaders, and the Iraqi people have the absolute right in international law to kill as many as they can.
President Saddam Hussein on Baghdad walkabout, 4 April 2003
Lest We Forget
Two-thirds of an Iraqi child eternally liberated by America
           As members of the American military stand at the open gates outside Baghdad, they probably still believe the worthless propaganda peddled by their political masters back in America, Britain and Australia, that the “Shi’ite Muslims will rise up against the evil Saddam” At best the politicians are dreaming, and at worst they actually believe this rubbish.
            American cluster bombs do not discriminate between Sunni and Shi’ite women and children, meaning that Sunni and Shi’ite males will continue to jointly defend their homes, and if at all possible, drive these illegal invaders from their country. So would you or I, regardless of whether we were Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist or Hindu.
            On 4 April, perhaps to bury this false perception of the Shi’ites forever, the Ayatollah and Mullahs in Iran sent a strong message of support to all Shi’ite Muslims in Iraq, urging the latter to “Fight against these English and American satanists and Zionists.”  No ambiguity whatever, making it impossible for the western media or politicians to try and pretend this message from Tehran really means “Fight Saddam instead”.
            So while the very small American force stands facing the open gates leading into the heart of Baghdad itself, with four million armed Iraqis in front and 100,000 armed Iraqis behind, its members might care to glance across to their right flank. Not very far away is the border with Iran, and if the mood swings less than a single degree, 500,000 armed Iranians could be on top of the American invaders in less than a single week.
            Do we really know what the Iranians are thinking? Of course not, but that is the very nature of propaganda, an awesome weapon of war used for millennia by countless armies around the world to create the impression they are winning a war, when the opposite may be true.  As far back as 500 BC, Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu made this general principle very clear when he wrote, “All warfare is based on deception.”
Coming soon, Part 2:
“The SAS welcomes you to the 'Israeli' oil pipeline in the western desert of Iraq”