I HAVE TO GET READY FOR CLASS. Go read Lileks:

The BBC (about which I will say more later) is reporting that the mood at CentCom is morose and dispirited; I get the impression that Tommy Frank has retired to his bunk in tears, and most of the officers are are 24-hour suicide watch. Ten Marines dead. No one expected that. The plans called for zero casualties, after all. This changes everything. Rip up the war plan.

At Normandy ten men died every second. Up and down the coast. All the damn day long.

Apparently, Tommy Franks isn’t watching the BBC. Then there’s this report:

While the fighting has become fiercer than expected in parts of the country, our unit has made rapid headway.

In one instance a U.S. army vehicle ran over a pile of machine guns abandoned on the roadside.

For many kilometres, civilians and soldiers were lined up, waving and blowing kisses at the passing vehicles holding U.S. Marines. Many begged for food. Each U.S. vehicle had been given two boxes of ready-to-eat rations suitable for Muslims. Some people came back for seconds, hiding the food they had already collected.

For their part, the U.S. troops were amazed at the Iraqi soldiers’ behaviour.

“Canteens, grenades, abandoned positions — they even left the Iraqi flag in place before they retreated,” said 1st Sergeant Miguel Pares, a New Yorker from Spanish Harlem and the top enlisted man in Bravo company, 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division.

“I wanted that flag so bad but we had to continue moving along.”

Guess 1st Sgt. Pares hasn’t been watching The Beeb either. Or maybe he has, and that’s why he’s “amazed.” Meanwhile, despite the negative coverage, coalition forces are somehow only sixty miles from Baghdad. This is a war that’s going badly?