Some days ago the Americans reported that the city of Basra had fallen. This morning I talked to Peter Arnett, the former CNN reporter who covered the 1991 Gulf War from the Rasheed hotel in Baghdad. Afterwards he was fired by CNN, because he had brought out the story of the Almeria air-raid shelter which was targeted with two precision bombs, charring hundreds of women and children. The aggressors do not want you to tell stories like that which prove that clean wars don't exist.

Whatever, Arnett now works for a different employer, a magazine. He tells me that the US have driven past the southern city of Basra near the border with Kuwait, without invading it. The US avoided the city, after dropping a number of bombs on it. It was also reported that the army in Basra would have surrended. But Arnett's sources say that negotiations are going on, in which the US promise that everybody in the Iraqi army can keep his position, if they surrender. In return they will have to accept being under American command.

How arrogant and pretentious can you be? Invading a sovereign, independent country, dropping thousands of bombs on it and then having the guts to try and boss around its army.

It is clear what an important role propaganda and psychological warfare play in this war. By these reports about the fall of Basra and the surrender of the army there, the US want to demoralize the others. And stations like CNN copy these news items indiscriminately thus taking part in the war. Here CNN sometimes spreads rumours. Like today, when they hinted that the Ministry of Information and the press centre would be bombarded which was why the people of the press were too afraid to attend the press briefing of the Iraqi authorities. In this way CNN hinders the communication of information from Iraq to the press.

The Pentagon (US Ministry of Defense) announced that they will get to Baghdad in three to four days. This is also bluff and aimed at 'demoralizing the enemy'. Peter Arnett thinks that invading Baghdad will depend on the city surrendering. Without this happening he thinks it will be unlikely that the US dare to enter Baghdad. And he believes that Iraq will not surrender just like that. So the US will be faced with the option of starting a battle in the city and this is something they shy away from. He also says that even if Basra and Mosul fall this does not imply the defeat of Iraq. The Iraqi strategy is to station the largest part of the army, and the best units in Baghdad. The weaker troops are in Basra and Mosul. This time, Iraq intends to force the US troops to enter the city, where Iraq has the advantage of being not in an open battlefield, and with more and better motivated soldiers that the US and Co. 

This is an advantage of being among journalists, you get a lot of information. We will at least be amongst the first people to see how things evolve in the city. 

This reminds me of the fact that Belgian television asked me tonight if I could see signs of the American troops nearing Baghdad. They are also influenced by this propaganda. Life in the city is much quieter than usual, far less traffic and regularly bombs, but after three days this does not baffle you so much as it did before. The composed reaction of the Iraqis also helps me to keep my cool. These people are not shaken easily.