- The SAS were the ones who located Chemical Ali in his own house - they called in the air/artillery strike. British forces have now found his body. This is the guy who videoed himself beating the shit out of prisoners of war. This is the guy who killed 300,000 people following the Shia rebellion in 1991. This is the guy who made his mark when he arrived in Basra by personally shooting a man in the street. This is the guy who gassed 5000 Kurds in 1988, part of a suspected total of 100,000 Kurds.

So, that's 400,000 people, and apparently many of the locals are too scared to accuse him of some crimes he's suspected of.

Half a million murders doesn't seem too unlikely.

Some people are better off dead.

(So, if Chemical Ali is alleged to have murdered nearly half a million people, how many has his cousin, Saddam killed?)


- Basra is virtually under British control. It's pockets of resistance time.

One of the most disgusting aspects of the regime I've seen yet, somehow even more so than the physical brutality, is Saddam's palace in Basra. Luxury's not the word. It's obscene. Everything metal is gold-plated, in hundreds of rooms, in just one of hundreds of palaces.

Meanwhile the people of Iraq have spent the last two decades starving.


- The Americans have launched another 'incursion' into Baghdad over night, but it seems like they were satisfied enough with the lack of resistance to hold the ground they took.