[Michael81Dus]

Hey, I was joking. I don´t want to defend the media.

I still believe that if S&A was part of the strategy, this part has failed. I don´t get the impression from our reporters in Iraq that many people surrender and stop fighting. I now fear that the war will last some months, including a bloody fight on the streets of Baghdad. We need to get Saddam. Sending some Rangers to the palaces would be a suicide command, mmh?

[mhking]

I still believe that if S&A was part of the strategy, this part has failed.

First off, I'm not willing to conceed it (in it's orginal, intended context) has failed. But let's say it has. No one who looks at this rationally could even dream that the US is a "one trick pony" - there are definitely other cards in the Administration/Coalition's hand; and certainly, the press ain't gonna (no matter how self-important they believe themselves to be) get wind of everything up GW's sleeve.

In any event, this Monday morning quarterbacking that the networks are playing is nothing more than "We don't have any other plans; we only planned for this to run a few weeks. Sweeps are coming!"

In other words, media stupidity as normal.

[An.American.Expatriate]

I know you don't want to defend the media, but you do want to defend you point and we respect that here!!!

Of course S&A is a part of the strategy - but what exactly IS S&A?

Only the planners know that and they are NOT telling us! The journalists may think they know, but they only know what the Pentagon has told them = zilch!

Rangers to the palaces may be okay, but only if we get good intel on SH. He has been very quiet lately....

Please remember one thing about the reporters "in Iraq" (not with the coalition). They have Minders and can not report anything which the minder does not approve of.

The embeddeds are under some constraints as to places and times (can't report actual combat stuff - common sense!). There may be some amount of censorship as well. The embeddeds are NOT however escorted to a scene hours after the fact to document the latest propaganda.

[AFPhys]

I don´t get the impression from our reporters in Iraq that many people surrender and stop fighting...

According to what I've been able to glean looking through MY particular soda straws, about half of the Iraqi troops have deserted. That makes it seem we've found a pretty effective way to fight a battle.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

S&A was about telling Saddam's regime we were serious, but it was mostly about taking out central command and control targets...the ones we knew could be used to launch missiles and possible chem/bio weapons towards Iraqi neighbors and Iraqi civilians. The Stealth B-2 bombers hit 96 precision targets that night on 6 separate passes. When the war ends and the history's written, S & A will awe, imho.