OK, some of you may be thinking that this is like talking about "the tennis prowess of Anna Kournikova." Perhaps. But in all seriousness, let's take a look.

Like many Americans, I saw a few brief clips yesterday of National Geographic Explorer correspondent Peter Arnett's interview with Iraq's government-run television station. This morning, I read the entire transcript at CNN.com.

I'd like to analyze the accuracy of what Arnett said, but unfortunately he made only one statement that can be checked against actual facts. Everything else appears to be personal opinion. In no case did he offer sources or data to support his contentions. So within those constraints, here is my cursory analysis:

ARNETT: Well, I'd like to say from the beginning that the 12 years I've been coming here, I've met unfailing courtesy and cooperation. Courtesy from your people, and cooperation from the Ministry of Information, which has allowed me and many other reporters to cover 12 whole years since the Gulf War with a degree of freedom which we appreciate. And that is continuing today.

I wonder why the Iraqi government did not show more cooperation with United Nations weapons inspectors, or why Arnett is one of the very few western journalists who have not been expelled from Iraq.

ARNETT: [I]t is clear that within the United States there is growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war.

This is the statement we have the luxury of verifying with actual data. And that data contradicts Arnett. In an ABC News/Washington Post poll asking, "Do you support or oppose the United States having gone to war with Iraq?" support increased by 1% (to 73%) since first asked a week prior, while opposition decreased by 2% (to 24%) in the same period, both changes being statistically insignificant as they are within the poll's 4.5% margin of error. In a CBS News poll asking, "Do you approve or disapprove of the United States taking military action against Iraq to try to remove Saddam Hussein from power?" most recent approval was at 77% with disapproval at 19% (MoE 3%). This question was asked periodically since September 2002, with approval rising and disapproval falling fairly steadily since January 2003. In a Fox News poll asking, "Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to disarm Iraq and remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein?" most recent support was 78%, having trended upward consistently since December, while opposition was down to a low of 18%. Only one poll showed a change in opinion more favorable to the anti-war position. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll asking, "Do you favor or oppose the U.S. war with Iraq?" support dipped 1% ( to 71%) while opposition increased 2% (to 27%). As with the ABC News/Washington Post poll, these changes were statistically insignificant, being within the 3% margin of error.

ARNETT: [R]eports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces ... helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.

This is one of my pet peeves, journalists who feel it's their job to help those who take one position or another to develop their arguments. It seems to me that they ought to report what they have been able to find out, period.

ARNETT: [C]learly this is a city that is disciplined, the population is responsive to the government's requirements of discipline and my Iraqi friends tell me there is a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain are doing.

Keep in mind that Arnett's Iraqi friends include the very cooperative officials from the Ministry of Information. And that the discipline of the population may well be achieved through fear of reprisals if they oppose the government.

ARNETT: President Bush says he is concerned about the Iraqi people, but if Iraqi people are dying in numbers, then American policy will be challenged very strongly.

Good, Peter, encourage them to use some more civilians as human shields and move more ammunition supplies into hospitals.

ARNETT: [T]he Pentagon keeps saying that the civilian casualties, particularly in Baghdad in the last three or four days, at the market places ... are Iraqi missiles that land amongst the people. They keep saying that, but of course the Iraqi government says they are clearly cruise missiles that hit the population.

And whom do you believe? The U.S. has missiles with highly advanced guidance systems, while Iraq has older missiles with obsolete guidance systems. Which do you suppose is more likely to miss its mark? Human shields just back from Baghdad have given eye-witness reports, to their great surprise, of the precision of the U.S. missiles and the locality of damage caused by them.

ARNETT: Whenever I gave a report on civilian casualties on CNN (in the first Gulf War) the Pentagon and the Bush administration got very angry and called me a traitor.

My recollection is that many of Arnett's Gulf War reports were, according to his own disclaimers, based on information given to him by Iraqi government officials which he could not independently verify. He was quite open in stating that he was passing along information given to him rather than found by him, which made him by definition a mouthpiece of the Iraqi government. I wouldn't go so far as to call that treason, but I would call it lazy journalism.

ARNETT: [W]hen missiles hit the Al-Maria shelter in early February of 1991, killing nearly 400 women and children, the Bush administration had to admit that they were responsible.

The administration didn't have to admit anything, but they did take responsibility because it was the factual truth. This admission, even though it resulted in criticism, suggests a willingness to be truthful that is noticeably absent from the Iraqi regime, and actually supports the veracity of U.S. claims now.

ARNETT: And when that happened, there was a different attitude to the war. They had to try and complete the war fast, because the world criticized that bombing very severely.

Sorry, but... no. The U.S. completed the war when the Iraqi army was expelled from Kuwait, which was the goal all along. Remember?

ARNETT: Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces.

To be fair to him, Arnett isn't the only journalist suggesting this. While it's possible that the military planners did misjudge, they never stated their original projections, so it's impossible for us to know. What we do know is that the media and their hired analysts, none of whom was actually involved in making the war plans, were talking early on about a swift victory, much to the consternation of Pentagon officials and military commanders. They haven't had so much egg on their face since election night, 2000.

ARNETT: I personally do not understand how that happened, because I've been here many times and in my commentaries on television I would tell the Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country. But me, and others who felt the same way were not listened to by the Bush administration.

Why should the Bush administration or the American viewing audience listen to you? You can't even report the opinion polls correctly.

ARNETT: That is why now America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and re-writing the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance now they are trying to write another war plan.

It's a fairly safe bet that Peter Arnett has no more definitive knowledge of the war plans that I do, especially considering that he's been in Baghdad hanging around with the Iraqi information ministry for the last 12 years. Maybe they'll give him a job. I hear he's looking.

From an editorial in today's Boston Globe:

For some governments that were most active in opposing the current war, the disposition of Iraq's oil reserves and of contracts for rebuilding the country will be more important than the destiny of Iraqis. Russian oil companies, in consortiums dominated by its biggest firms, have seen Saddam sign and then nullify potentially lucrative contracts to exploit large oil fields. The French firm TotalFinaElf has also negotiated exploitation agreements that could not be implemented as long as UN sanctions were imposed on Iraq.

Russia's ardor to have its oil companies share in postwar consortiums to explore and extract Iraqi oil has been more overt than France's. But in both cases, prewar rifts with Washington may be easier to heal if their oil companies are not excluded from a share in postwar consortiums receiving contracts from an elected Iraqi government.

And from FoxNews.com:

Senior Defense officials say they are seeing 'military equipment' coming across the border from Syria to Iraq.

[Marc] Ginsberg, a former U.N. ambassador to Morocco, said Syria has been making money off the oil it allows Iraq to illegally sell on the black market.

'Nuff said.

From CNN.com:

Coalition officials said Thursday that Iraqi forces in Najaf and Basra have threatened Iraqis with death if they don't pick up arms against U.S.-led forces. "Iraqi paramilitaries are rounding up children and others from their homes, saying males must fight for the regime or be executed," said Jim Wilkinson, assistant to Central Command leader Tommy Franks. Burridge, the British commander, said the ruling Baath Party militia in Basra is pressuring remnants of the Iraqi army's 51st Division to reoccupy their equipment after intimidating them and by executing some soldiers' families in some instances.

If you haven't known for at least the last 12 years that Saddam Hussein and his regime are barbarians, you haven't been paying attention. Keep in mind that for most of those 12 years, with the exception of being on the receiving end of a few "targeted strikes," Iraq was not engaged in armed conflict (although technically they were still at war, the hostilities of first Gulf War having been ended by a cease-fire rather than a truce). I believe that war doesn't change the nature of governments but merely makes them more so, and in this case we see how much more barbaric -- and less humane -- Saddam has become now that his personal future is in question.

Also from CNN.com:

Antiwar protesters blocked two lanes of traffic and a busy intersection Thursday morning in Midtown Manhattan as part of a planned "die-in." A coalition of antiwar groups broke through police barricades and lay down at 50th Street and Fifth Avenue to act as mock war victims.

One wonders why they aren't protesting in Baghdad. If they were, they might be singing a different tune, as is Daniel Pepper, an American anti-war activist living in the U.K. who went to Iraq as a "human shield" to protect the defenseless civilian population. His thoughts were recently published in the Sunday Telegraph:

I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam.

It's worth reading his entire column. Eye-opening stuff.

My point is that while we formulate military strategies designed not only to minimize civilian casualties but, if things go right, to avoid them entirely, the Iraqi military-political machine uses civilian lives as so many weapons against the U.S./U.K./Aussie coalition. Meanwhile, the Arab world and the European-American "peace movement" rails inexplicably not against Saddam but against us.

I understand that there is a pacifist position that rejects all war and strives instead for non-violent solutions. I personally know many such people, Catholic Worker folks who truly believe there is a better way. I respect them for their consistency, which places them morally head and shoulders above the mindless puppets that make up the largest part of the protesting mobs in cities throughout the world. I admire their commitment to a way of living that has a deep spiritual basis. I have tried hard to see their point of view, have wanted to to be more like them, to believe as they do. But for now, at least, their belief system doesn't make sense to me in the context of a Saddam Hussein.

I am not anything close to a hawk. But I must say that, due mostly to the inane screeches of the uninformed who seem committed only to oppose anything the Bush administration supports, I find the leaders of our military—who have taken care to place the well-being of Iraqi civilians on a par with that of the troops under their command—to be must more trustworthy than people who rant and rave in the streets with little reality to inform their opinions.

Maybe they should listen to Daniel Pepper's opinion, which is based on actual experience. Perhaps they'll come to realize that in a side-by-side comparison of America's government, with all its flaws, and the dictatorial Iraqi regime, it's clear that we're better.

From FoxNews.com:

In France, vandals have ransacked McDonald's restaurants in Paris and Strasbourg, targeting the fast food chain as a symbol of American influence.

Chances are the targeted restaurants are owned by French people. Stupid.

Which brings me to a belated rant about France, ringleader of The Big Three—the other two being Germany and Russia (China doesn't count until they release the dissidents jailed since Tiananmen Square)—who have so loudly opposed the actions of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, et al. against Iraq.

Now, I want to avoid war as much as the next person. But I didn't vote for any of the 17—count 'em, 17—United Nations resolutions demanding that the Iraqi regime comply with the terms of the cease-fire they themselves signed to suspend the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. It is now clear, if it wasn't before, that these countries, France especially, never had any intentions of holding Iraq in compliance in the first place. One wonders why they even bothered to vote for all those resolutions. Maybe they were hoping to inspect Saddam Hussein to death. Of they thought Saddam might, like the tin man, magically grow a heart. One thing is certain: they sure didn't learn any lessons from 12 years of Iraqi delaying tactics, jerking around the hapless U.N. inspection teams, and ultimately expelling them all together until threatened with military retaliation. 12 years. On what grounds does anyone think that any sort of substantive, earnest cooperation might suddenly begin now?

I think I would respect the French government much more if they had just voted against all the prior U.N. resolutions and acknowledged what we now know: that they didn't have the stomach to actually hold Iraq to their word. Apparently they thought they could have it both ways, looking like an international leader while preserving their oil contracts (and Russia's contraband arms contracts). But when push came to shove, they had to choose. They chose the oil. Now their citizens march through the streets aping the ironic mantra of "no blood for oil."

And they vandalize fast-food restaurants owned by their countrymen and countrywomen. Stupid.