SADDAM ON TV: A composed Saddam Hussein addressed yesterday on TV his people and armed forces in an obvious attempt to boost their morale in the face of American invaders’ advance toward Baghdad.

His address followed up incidents wherein the superior US forces got a dose of their own shock treatment when they lost a number of personnel in unexpected pockets of resistance in some southeastern sections.

American leaders may cast doubts if it was really Saddam, uniform and mustache neatly in place. Whatever, his appearance blunted rumors in the western press that the strongman was wounded, or even killed, at the height of US bombing nights ago.

It was not a furtive or abbreviated address. He perorated on, unmindful of the known capability of the US to pinpoint sources of broadcasts and heavy communication traffic. We began to wonder if Saddam was still in Baghdad.

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SPARE THE PRISONERS: Our heart went out to the wounded American prisoners, one of them a FilAm, shown yesterday being interviewed on TV after their capture in southern Iraq. Their families must be distressed, and we commiserate with them.

They were not combat troops, but support personnel. Note their answers to questions: One said he was assigned to fix “broke” things. Another said he was just following orders. A third pleaded that he had no quarrel with Iraqis.

All of them, we’re sure, were telling the truth. We pray they will be treated well and eventually reunited with their families.

War is such a terrible thing. It sets us fighting one another, even among us who harbor no personal animosities.

If only war could be confined to one-on-one bouts between megalomaniacs posing as world leaders without involving their innocent population….

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HUMANE TREATMENT: President George W. Bush denounced the captured Americans’ being “paraded” on TV. He said that was a violation of Geneva conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners of war.

We sensed that Bush and his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, invoked the Geneva conventions in the context of the prisoners of war being maltreated or humiliated.

But Bush should be the last person to invoke international conventions and time-honored ground rules on multilateral relations — not after he brushed aside the United Nations and invaded Iraq in clear violation of the UN charter.

Wasn’t the US also in violation of international conventions when it kept prisoners of war from Afghanistan in Guantanamo Bay in inhuman and humiliating conditions? The prisoners were shown in official government photographs in shackles and caged like animals.

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PRESS BEING USED?: A BBC correspondent said yesterday that some reporters had been “embedded” into US combat units with the understanding that they would help document and report any discovery of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

This revelation will fuel the debate going on about the ethics of journalists allowing themselves to be used as a component of the war machine unleashed in the desert of Iraq.

The war has dragged on for days and no evidence of weapons of mass destruction has been found, except those being held and used with impunity by the US on the Iraqi capital.

There were film clips of troopers yesterday carrying off records in plastic bags from what the military said was an overrun chemical factory where chemical weapons may have been manufactured.

Our lawyer friends, we’re sure, will question the “probative” value of such “evidence” seized in unilateral fashion, even with collaborating journalists present.

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PROPAGANDA WAR: This point, again, underscores the importance of propaganda as a weqpon of war. Where should the press draw the line between professional journalism and patriotism?

Recall that last Friday the Pentagon (US defense department) reported that the strategic southern city of Basra had capitulated with the surrender of an entire Iraqi division securing the area.

It turned out that the US-UK coalition was just trying to negotiate a modus vivendi wherein the Iraqi troops would be allowed to stay while the city is used to consolidate the coalition’s hold on that part of Iraq near the Gulf.

Col. Khaled al-Hashemi, commander of the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division, said Sunday that his men continued to resist the invaders. “I’m with my men in Basra, we continue to defend the people and riches” of the town, he told the television channel Al-Jazeera.

Days ago, the US also claimed to have taken Umm Qasr, a small port city also near the edge of the Gulf, but until yesterday Iraqis there continued to resist.

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BOTH SIDES USE IT: Propaganda, of course, is used by both sides. This will explain why Iraqi TV goes to town showing footages of Americans being captured or aircraft being shot down.

Saddam’s TV appearance yesterday, while it had legitimate journalistic value, was also propaganda.

In the same vein, Pentagon uses its influence on American media to prevent or temper the showing of films likely to turn public opinion against the US. Most networks blacked out the footages on the US prisoners.

At conclusion of the campaign, assuming it will end with the likely capture of Baghdad, one of the casualties of war might well be the press.

In the case of the Philippine press, one of its problems is that it does not have the resources for spot cover in depth in that far-away arena. But thanks to the wonders of modern technology, a Filipino editor in Manila could be just as satisfied with the flow of information as a news bureau chief in Washington.

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WAR IS BIG BUSINESS: One of the biggest stories still to be written revolves around the well-connected beneficiaries of the gigantic war effort of the Bush administration.

With more than $60 billion in war spending being burned in the name of the Iraqi people being “liberated,” which firms will catch the windfall and who in the US government will get the usual commission?

The cost of one US missile is enough to feed one barangay in the province for half a year. The way Bush rains missiles on Baghdad, sometimes as many as 1,500 in one raid, one would think these weapons of mass destruction have expiry dates on them.

One suspects that the bombs have to be detonated as rapidly as possible to make room in the arsenal for the new materiel being brought in by the suppliers.

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LUCKY FIRMS: Reuters reports that when it comes to making money from a war in Iraq, “few can match the firepower of the company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.”

The report says, “Houston-based Halliburton Co. can build roads and bridges and camps for American forces. It can transport personnel and provide other logistics. It can fight any fires Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein might set. And after the war, assuming a US victory, it can help restore Iraq’s infrastructure and oil production.”

It quotes a Bank of America analyst as saying, “Halliburton’s KBR engineering and construction division is basically the ‘corps of engineers’ to the US military. “It is expected that the occupying army’s infrastructure could in large part be supplied by KBR.”

Reuters reports that “the company’s oilfield services business, which is second only to Schlumberger Ltd., is likely to supply most of the heavy equipment to fight fires that Iraqi forces could set to oil wells and oil fields, as they did in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War.”

Other companies that could bid for firefighting contracts include Boots & Coots International Well Control Inc., Canada’s Safety Boss Inc., RPC Inc.’s Cudd Pressure Control and Superior Energy Services Inc.’s Wild Well Control Inc.