DIYARBAKIR — I’m reading reports that the U.S. assault is taking a week’s pause to toughen up the supply lines to the front units as they prepare to hit Baghdad. Also, everything is bogged down thanks to problems with the Fedayeen militia and other harassing Iraqi units, that Iraqi resistance is tougher than Rumsfeld & Co. expected. Maybe these reports are true, maybe they’re disinformation from the Americans in preparation of a lightning assault.

DIYARBAKIR — Ah, Diyarbakir. This is an ancient city, almost 4,000 years old, one of the oldest on the planet. Last time I was here, the oppression stuck to my skin like humidity in a rain forest. Armored personnel carriers roamed the streets and the cops beat the hell out of a crowd of Kurds when they came to a cemetery hoping to memorialize a democracy martyr’s death from the early 1990s.