74^th in continuing blog series. The first few days of the invasion see brazen and triumphal assertions of success in Iraq, with some intermittent mystification because those caches of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are not turning up.
March 26-27, 2003:

 
March 26, 2003 – Bush gives a speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL:

“It has been six days since the major ground war began. It's been five days since the major air war began. And every day has brought us closer to our objective. At the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Special Forces helped to secure air fields and bridges and oil fields, to clear the way for our forces and to prevent sabotage and environmental catastrophe. Our pilots and Cruise missiles have struck vital military targets with lethal precision.

    We've destroyed the base of a terrorist group in Northern Iraq that sought to attack America and Europe with deadly poisons. We have moved over 200 miles to the north, toward Iraq's capital, in the last three days. (Applause.) And the dictator's major Republican Guard units are now under direct and intense attack. (Applause.) Day by day, Saddam Hussein is losing his grip on Iraq; day by day, the Iraqi people are closer to freedom. (Applause.)”

Same day – “The Coalition,” an op-ed by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, appears in the Wall Street Journal:

“WASHINGTON -- The coalition that is currently engaged in the hard, dangerous work to disarm Iraq is strong, broad and diverse.

    Nearly 50 nations are committed to ridding Saddam Hussein's regime of all its deadly, destructive and illegal weapons. To put this in perspective, the combined population of coalition countries is approximately 1.23 billion people, with a combined gross domestic product of approximately $22 trillion. These countries are from every continent on the globe, representing every major race, religion, and ethnicity in the world.

    Diverse as this coalition is, each member shares a common goal. We seek nothing less than safety for our people. Many members have suffered from terror themselves; all understand the awful price of terrorism and the potentially catastrophic danger from weapons of mass destruction.”

 
Looks as though the White House and the Office of the Vice President can already see signs of trouble, re those missing WMDs. Condoleezza Rice is seldom pressed into service so overtly.

Same day – Iraq war architect Richard S. Perle resigns as chair of the Defense Advisory Board, which advises the Pentagon, partly because of controversy over his $725,000 deal to get government contracts for bankrupt company Global Crossings Ltd. while heading the defense board. In a letter to Rumsfeld made public by the Pentagon, Perle denies wrongdoing but says he would not want to cause any distraction for the war effort.
 

Among other beneficiaries of Global Crossing largesse during its days of peak revenues is former president George H. W. Bush, who received shares of Global Crossing stock worth $14.4 million in 1999, in lieu of an $80,000 speaking fee.

March 27, 2003 – Bush and Blair appear together at Camp David. Bush discusses the Iraq war:

“We're now engaging the dictator's most hardened and most desperate units. The campaign ahead will demand further courage and require further sacrifice. Yet we know the outcome: Iraq will be disarmed; the Iraqi regime will be ended; and the long-suffering Iraqi people will be free.

    In decades of oppression, the Iraqi regime has sought to instill the habits of fear in the daily lives of millions; yet, soon, the Iraqis will have the confidence of a free people. Our coalition will stand with the citizens of Iraq in the challenges ahead. We are prepared to deliver humanitarian aid on a large scale -- and as a matter of fact, are beginning to do so as we speak.

    Today the Prime Minister and I also urge the United Nations to immediately resume the oil-for-food program. More than half the Iraqi people depend on this program as their sole source of food. This urgent humanitarian issue must not be politicized, and the Security Council should give Secretary General Annan the authority to start getting food supplies to those most in need of assistance.”

Same day – Judith Miller and the New York Times cling to hope that Iraqi WMD will be found:

“American military officials have found no traces of chemical or biological agents at a sprawling Iraqi ammunition storage facility south of Baghdad, weapons experts and military officers said today.

          But officials said the site at Najaf, about 90 miles south of the Iraqi capital, remained suspicious because there were several indications that chemical or germ weapons might have been made or stored there.

          Of greatest interest to intelligence officials is information being provided by an Iraqi general who was a senior official there and who surrendered to American forces when they entered the complex about four days ago.  Officials said the general, who claims not to have had any involvement in Iraq's chemical warfare program, told military intelligence analysts that there were special bunkers and underground tunnels in the compound that neither he nor other senior staff were permitted to enter.” (New York Times, “A NATION AT WAR: IN THE FIELD WEAPONS; U.S. Hunts for Bio-Agents And Gas at an Iraq Depot,” B4)