Stardate 20030410.1644

(Captain's log): Yesterday was truly an amazing day. After two days of massive combat in which we may well have inflicted thousands of casualties on the militant defenders, there was an outright collapse. When that kind of thing happens, it can be breathtakingly sudden, and we went in just 24 hours from major combat in Baghdad to people dancing in the streets.

The visual image most people have, the iconic moment that truly meant the end of the Cold War, was when the people of Berlin tore down the wall. The iconic image from the war in the Pacific was the raising of the flag on top of Mount Suribachi on Iwo, even though the battle there raged for several more weeks after that moment.

I think that the iconic image of Iraqi victory will be that yesterday of American Marines pulling down a major statue of Saddam, to the glee of the crowd that proceeded to dance on it and kick it. The war isn't over yet, but it's a key moment nonetheless.

My predominant feeling yesterday was of relief, a release of tension and fear and trepidation. There were so many things which could have gone wrong; so many disasters which could have overtaken us. There were so many ways in which the situation could have resulted in vast numbers of dead and wounded. And none of them have happened, and the chance of disaster is now lower than it has been in the last year.

About a hundred Americans and maybe 35 or so Brits have died so far in the campaign, and each of those is important. But by the standards of historical military campaigns, considering how much we've done and where and against what kind of potential resistance, that is astoundingly low. We lost more people than that in 1991, while actually accomplishing much less using a much larger and more powerful force. And there's every reason now to believe that we actually killed far more Iraqis in 1991 than we have so far in this war.

There's still a lot of fighting to be done, and many other challenges facing us. But the worst is over. Most of the worst things I feared would already have happened if they were going to.

Exultation, perhaps even a bit of gloating, will come later once combat truly ends. But what we face now is mopping up. The central government ceased to exist yesterday; those in power who were still alive are now only thinking of trying to save their own skins.

I am deeply relieved that we lost so few casualties, and that we had to actually kill so few Iraqis. I never dared hope that it would go this well.