One of the most striking features of the war so far has been the fact that, on a wide range of issues, Iraqi official statements have been a more reliable source of information than those of the US and allied governments. Within the first day or so of the invasion, US sources on the spot in Southern Iraq were claiming the capture of towns like Nasiriya and Umm Qasr, the surrender of entire Iraqi divisions and predicting the imminent fall of Basra. Meanwhile, Iraqi officials in Baghdad were denying all this and claiming that their forces were fighting on. Even for someone as skeptical of US official pronouncements as me, it did not seem difficult to tell who had the facts on their side and who was merely blustering.

But as it has turned out, the Iraqis were right on all these counts, while the US was wrong. The Iraqi claims may have been just lucky guesses but it seems more likely that their communications have not been disrupted to the extent that the US has claimed.

On the US side, there’s no reason to suppose that the claims were deliberate lies or military misinformation. The most plausible explanation is less sinister but in many ways more disturbing. Throughout the journey to war, the US Administration has displayed wishful thinking on a massive scale, leading to uncritical acceptance of anything that seemed to reinforce its self-belief. The easy credulity that was given to the forged documents supposedly showing Iraqi purchases of uranium from Niger and the clumsily doctored and plagiarised analysis of Iraqi intelligence put forward by Blair’s spin doctors are two of the most notable examples, but there are many more.

The most critical piece of wishful thinking is the assumption that the armed forces of the US and UK, which have been bombing and starving Iraqis for the last decade, will be welcomed as liberators when they finally defeat Saddam. The argument that Saddam’s defiance was responsible for the bombings and that his corruption was responsible for the devastating impact of the sanctions, plays well in Washington thinktanks, but I imagine the view of the average Iraqi is much closer to ‘a plague on both your houses’.

Having long feared the adoption of a ‘shock and awe’ strategy in Iraq, I assumed the worst when large-scale bombardment of Baghdad began a few days ago. ‘The worst’, in this context means a strategy designed to terrify the population into submission either by inflicting substantial casualties or knocking out services like electricity and water. In fact, the reports from Baghdad so far suggest that, while massive in scale, the bombardment was tightly focused on targets like government departments and Saddam’s palaces, and that civilian casualties have been limited. This is a good thing, and gives at least some hope that the war will not turn out disastrously badly.

On the other hand, while technologically impressive, this kind of attack does not seem to have generated much shock or awe and nor was it likely to. Everyone knew that the US had the capacity to flatten Saddam’s palaces and assumed they would do so. That included the regime which appears to have evacuated most of the obvious targets in Baghdad itself, although the situation may be different with the Republican Guard perimeter defences.

The strategy of striking at symbolic targets associated with the regime, and of attempting ‘decapitation’ would be an effective one if (as some commentators have assumed) the regime is so much hated that the majority of people would actively support an invasion as soon as it appeared safe to do so. But so far, that does not appear to be the case. No doubt most Iraqis hate Saddam, but there’s little evidence that they have any love for Bush.

The war is only two days old, but it’s already clear that its central rationale is fatally flawed. If Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction represented a threat to the US under any circumstances, they would already have been used, against US forces or against Israel.

The absence of an attack on Israel is particularly striking. US forces are already seizing possible bases for Scud attacks in Western Iraq (finding no Scuds apparently) so the opportunity for such an attack will be over very shortly. There is no reason why Saddam should refrain from such an attack except that he lacks any capacity. Similarly, the Iraqi forces in Southern Iraq are throwing everything they have at Kuwait. This clearly doesn’t include WMDs and, despite early reports, apparently doesn’t include Scuds either.

Although the war has just begin, a lot of crucial decisions about the post-war shape of the Middle East are going to be made over the next day or so. The post of Palestinian PM has been accepted by Mahmoud Abbas, thus meeting Bush’s stated condition for the publication of a “roadmap” for an Israel-Palestine settlement. Sharon has already rejected crucial elements of the roadmap inclduing the ultimate goal of an independent Palestinian state.

Bush has the choice between publishing the roadmap now, as he is committed to do, or deferring it until after the war with Iraq is resolved, as the Israeli government hopes and expects, knowing that delay will give them enough time either to force their desired changes through or to derail the process altogether. I expect he will defer, but I would be very glad to be proved wrong.

On another front, it appears likely that the Turkish government will mount what is, in effect, an independent invasion of Iraq, with the stated objective of coping with refugees, but the barely-concealed motive of keeping the Kurds in check. Ken Parish has a good post on the problems this will raise.

Turkey’s moral position may be weak, but, as I note in Ken’s comment box, the legal position is trickier. Turkey can use all the same arguments as the US about resolutions 678, 687 and 1441, as well as the right of self-defence. Again this will be a big, and difficult, test for Bush. Will he seek to protect the Kurds, risking the loss of Turkish airbases and airspace, or leave the problem to be resolved after the war, when the Turkish army may be well-entrenched? Again, I expect the worst, but hope for the best.

One hopeful sign is that the much-heralded “shock and awe” attack has not been launched (at least not yet). Again, Ken Parish has a good post on this. I expressed the hope a few days ago that talk of “shock and awe” was the product of a misinformation campaign. It’s still unclear whether this is correct or whether the delay has been due to the confusion about whether Saddam had been killed in the opening surprise attack. Given that war had effectively been declared, an attempt to end it quickly by killing Saddam was justified, but it appears not to have succeeded. The chances of a sustainable peace will be greatly enhanced if the “shock and awe” option is forsworn.

I sort-of promised a post on my impressions of Question Time, but Geoff Kitney was there too, and has done a much better job than I would have.

Now that war has started we can only hope that that it will be over quickly and that there will be as little bloodshed as possible on all sides. While all loss of life is equally tragic. it’s natural for us to think particularly about Australians. One thing I learned in listening to Question Time is that in addition to our troops (about 2000), there are about a dozen other Australian citizens known to be in Iraq (some media people, some human shields and a handful of others) as well as an unknown number of people with dual Australian-Iraqi citizenship. Regardless of their reason for being there, I hope that all will survive unharmed and that no Australian families will be bereaved by this war.