Heartland

Christopher Bellamy (professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University) wrote:Quite why the Americans felt they had to drop 1,000 men by parachute 50 miles behind the front line in safe, secure, Kurdish territory to an airfield on which they were already landing helicopters is unclear.

It could only have impressed the Western media. There is no way it could have impressed Iraqis. The British Paras don't parachute if there is an airfield to land on, and some of them yesterday were not impressed, either. But it made good TV in the absence of much other good news.