From our London correspondent. He said he'd try to edit his dispatches but I suppose there's a learning process involved... :-P
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What some in this country (the U.K. Ed.) would regard as the most shocking scene to be shown on television since the beginning of the war was transmitted today by Fox News. The English are well known for their love of animals and have a special soft spot for donkeys. Donkey sanctuaries run by charities attract huge bequests from elderly spinsters, kindness to donkeys coinciding with cruelty to expectant nephews and nieces. Beginning about an hour before the Centcom briefing Fox set up a kind of TV serial comprised of a progression of images of two Iraqi citizens loading-up one of those two wheel donkey carts that are a familiar and attractive feature of the Basra street scene. What appeared to be being loaded was a palace-size fitted wardrobe. Whatever it was, there was a lot of it and every few minutes Fox would return to the scene to show even more cupboards, and doors of cupboards (and may be a his-and-hers dressing table), being piled higher and higher on the cart.

The donkey was a very small one. Fox's point, presumably, was that this was a probable example of looting. You can be sure, however, that the concern of the average English female viewer of a certain age would be exclusively directed to whether so small a donkey could possible pull a cart loaded higher than a standard issue (Iraqi municipalities for the use of) Saddam statue. The only possible alleviating factor that could be envisaged is that one of the two Iraqis would assist the donkey by pushing the cart from the back. There was a break in the Fox donkey coverage for the length of the Centcom briefing. When they returned briefly afterwards the donkey could be seen pulling the cart with one of the Iraqis walking along side supporting one of the items which was projecting outwards by about ten feet and the other walking behind the cart at a distance of several feet.

To be fair, the Donkey seemed to be quite unphased and able to pull the cart without difficulty. But small donkeys pulling carts loaded to the skies are about as acceptable to elderly English ladies as Korean dog soup. My advice, therefor, to anyone wishing to start a business in post war liberated Iraq would be set up a donkey sanctuary funded out of England. And sit back and wait for the legacies.