Stardate 20030321.1731

(On Screen): This are going better than I dared hope. And many of the threats against us, and the fearful predictions of disaster, also have not been realized.

There were the predictions of a worldwide outbreak of terrorist attacks. Thousands of "sleeper cells" were poised, waiting to unleash violence and death everywhere, as soon as the first M1 crossed the Iraqi border. Where are they? They never existed, of course.

There have been protests in Arab nations, but if there's any sign of a mass uprising by the "Arab Street", I haven't seen it.

Oh, and then there were those predictions of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, all of whom would die when we used indiscriminate carpet-bombing of all of Iraq's cities. Only we didn't, and they're not dead.

I had fully expected that chemical weapons would have been used against us by now, and I am very grateful that they haven't been. I also feared that they'd have been fired against Israel or Kuwait, but they haven't.

Maybe we caught Saddam in a targeted bombing Wednesday night; we still don't know. But no one in Iraq seems to be in command, and that's a major victory. Whether that's because the top commanders are dead, or because they're in hiding, or because we've destroyed their communications doesn't matter.

And now we learn that Iraq's 51st Infantry division just surrendered near Basra. Thus there won't be any city-fighting there.

Each day in a war is a new challenge; each day is a risk. Anything can happen. Horrible things may still be in store. But progress so far has been close to ideal, and for that we can be grateful, and can admire those who made it happen, for this is not the result of luck. This kind of thing happens to those who make their own luck.