Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hussein?
By John Keegan, Defence Editor The Nebuchadnezzar is said to be coming forward from positions to the north of the city. It may attempt to fight a meeting engagement with the advancing Americans, though that is most unlikely, to take up defensive positions or to withdraw inside the built-up area.

The truth of the matter is that none of the Iraqi divisions, Republican Guard or regular army, is up to fighting a large American formation.

If it moves, its vehicles and other equipment will be devastated by waiting American aircraft. If it stays in static defensive position, it will be shot out of them by superior American tank gunnery. If it retires into the city, it largely loses its military usefulness.

Saddam, or whoever is in charge, is fighting the strangest war. It is tempting to wonder, on the evidence so far presented, whether the Iraqis have been fighting a war at all.

Admittedly there has been a certain amount of sniping and loose shooting. Iraqis in civilian clothes have been firing at American and British soldiers. However, that seems about the extent of enemy activity.

Consider what the Iraqis have not done. They did not defend their frontier with Kuwait. The coalition forces passed through unopposed. They scarcely defended Umm Qasr, Iraq's only and vital port.

It fell to 40 and 42 Commando after three days. They have not fought any large-scale or even small-scale battles, though the territory of their country is being eaten up day by day. More mysteriously they have neither demolished nor seriously defended any of the bridges over the Tigris or the Euphrates, which are essential to the coalition's movements into the country.

If Saddam had some great counter-attack force preparing a trap for the coalition in the national heartland, one might fear that the abandonment of the bridges intact was a devilish plot, designed to make all come right for him in one sudden reversal of fortune.

As he does not possess such a force, Iraq's defensive strategy, if it can be so called, appears casual to the point of carelessness. Moreover, looking through the other end of the telescope, what Iraq has failed to do amounts also to an inexplicable abdication of advantage. Blown bridges are strong defences, as long as blown in time.

What is Saddam up to? Does he believe that he can inflict such casualties on the Americans outside Baghdad that they will lose heart and go home? Does he believe that he can fight and win a battle of Baghdad? Did he so much underestimate his enemies that he made no proper preparations? Did he so much overestimate the importance of Franco-German protest that he was persuaded he did not need to? Or is it simply that Saddam is disabled or actually dead and that no one of his megalomaniac determination is running the Iraqi war effort?

Some explanation is necessary. Strategic analysis does not work. This is a deeply mysterious war.

Perhaps there will be a big battle over the next few days, through which the Iraqi hand will be revealed. That seems improbable. Yet, unless and until there is some serious fighting, observers will be left with the eerie impression that the Second Gulf War is not really taking place.