Just to close off this thread. Guest - once the maddened hordes are marching up my street waving copies of the Al Quaeda Manifesto and demanding blood, the last person I'd want standing between me and them would be an inarticulate US Army PR flack, even if he was wearing a uniform. What would he do? Hurl copies of "MS Word for Dummies" at them?

We haven't heard from S.S.S. since last week. Being a devotee of the cock-up theory of history, I reckon that he had nothing to do with the military press office and just happened to be the one standing next to the phone in an otherwise empty office when the BBC called.

But I'm *still* waiting for a coherent explanation of what the Allied armies are doing there in Iraq....