Key points from army briefings
Our correspondent sifts through the latest daily briefings by the United States Central Command in Qatar:
Republican Guard Defences:
A Special Forces operation gone wrong?
Berets not Helmets
Why has the south not risen up?
- "They're rising up, although slower than we'd hoped," says a senior US official at Centcom. Basra and Nasiriya, he says "are close to the tipping point".
- Officials here believe that paramilitary organisations and Ba'ath party members fiercely loyal to Saddam Hussein still have urban populations in their thrall.
People are simply too afraid to rise up and need more reassurance that it's safe to do so.
Officials recognise that having been let down by the West in 1991, there is great reluctance to rise up again and face possible revenge from Saddam Hussein's forces.
The Pentagon has so far denied reports that it plans to send captives to Guantanamo Bay, where Afghan detainees are being held.
But both the Americans and the British are now detaining men at checkpoints and taking them away for questioning (television pictures have shown people being led away with hoods over their heads).
- The British commander at Centcom's Qatar base, Air Marshall Brian Burridge, says he is comfortable with the legal basis for this, but the longer the conflict continues and the more prisoners are taken, the more this may become an issue of controversy.
Just what status will these people enjoy, if they are not regarded by the US-led coalition as POWs?
How effective are psychological operations?
WATCH AND LISTEN
The BBC's James Westhead
"The US account of the shooting seems to conflict with one eye witness report"
The BBC's Rageh Omaar reports from Baghdad
"People will go away from this... certainly more afraid"
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