Operation Overblown

Operation Swarmer was propaganda for the American voters, not the biggest air campaign of the war.

According to a colleague of mine from TIME who traveled up there today on a U.S. embassy-sponsored trip, there are no insurgents, no fighting and 17 of the 41 prisoners taken have already been released after just one day. The “number of weapons caches” equals six, which isn’t unusual when you travel around Iraq. They’re literally everywhere... it’s a telling example of how “well” things are going in Iraq that after three years, the U.S. is still leading the fight and conducting sweeps in an area that has been swept/contained/pacfied/cleared five or six times since 2004. How long before the U.S. has to come back again?

ADDED - TIME: How Operation Swarmer Fizzled

Molly Ivins: The fog of victory As Rep. John Murtha put it, "The only people who want us in Iraq are Iran and al Qaeda."

Tags: Iraq, propaganda