Military geek alert: Turns out the 7th Cavalry Regiment is the “lead element” of the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division, the one Fred Kaplan said on Slate (see below) might head straight for Baghdad. It is headed for Baghdad. Kaplan was mistaken, however, when he suggested there would be a media blackout if that division (Ted Koppel’s) were indeed on the move. Instead, the media and the military appear to have cut a deal whereby certain operational info is withheld, but the broadcast goes on. (Presumably the reporter’s exact coordinates would be a no-no.) Hence, I stayed up all night listening to CNN's Walter Rodgers, who’s at the front of the U.S. 7th, and watching his grainy videophone footage of the desert streaking by. (Baghdad says it's just a tape loop.... Right.)

Rodgers kept talking about “vignettes” involving Bedouins. First there were the Bedouins who came out of their tents and just shook their heads in amazement as the column of 2,000 tanks zoomed by. Then there was the Bedoiuin compound briefly mistaken by an advancing tank officer for a Scud emplacement. The officer was duly embarrassed. Nobody was hurt.

Call me naive, but I didn’t realize an armored column traveling across the open desert, meeting little resistance, traveled so damn slow. As of 6 a.m. they’d been traveling for 12 hours, and gotten 150km inside Iraq. That’s not even as far as Brno, which is normally a two-hour drive from Prague.

I also didn’t know we were still using napalm.

Speaking about the lack of media blackout. The military is bringing the media along (not just U.S. and British media) for three reasons: 1. There was so much criticism for keeping the media in the dark during GWI (this is probably the least important reason). 2. In case something really bad happens (i.e. if Saddam uses chemical weapons, they want the world to see; read the New Yorker’s frightening "Unembedded" piece) 3. Obviously, in case something really good happens (i.e. Iraqis celebrating in the streets).

That said, BBC is now blaming the Americans for an "information deficit" at Qatar Central Command. Apparently all the news is coming in bits and pieces from the front. This is the exact opposite of GWI.