The politics of fear continues

Ah yes, leave it up to the Washington Post to become the new mouthpiece of the Iraqi regime:

The prediction last week by Sultan, the defense minister, that Baghdad would be encircled within 10 days has proved uncannily accurate. And today, perhaps more than any other time since the war began, an element of anxiety was visible within the government.

In a message to Kurdish leaders read today on television, Hussein warned them against “rushing and doing something you’ll regret.” Iraqi officials appeared only once today, down from the two and even three news conferences they have held since the start of the war. And television broadcast a warning that all Iraqis with satellite phones should surrender them so that the government could identity “infiltrating” transmissions. Those who don’t, it said, would be treated as spies.

It was difficult to gauge the depth of unease in a government that, at one time, said it was deliberating what religious rites should be guaranteed for the corpses of U.S. and British soldiers and whether they should be buried in mass pits or individual graves. In more understated moments, Ramadan, the vice president, and other officials have said they intend to prolong the war, but offer little assessment of how it will end. Today, Ramadan suggested that giving U.S. forces a good fight might be a victory in itself.

“It is a battle for honor and dignity,” he said.